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How to Start Your Own
Herbarium

Herbarium - A collection of dried specimens of plants with date (information) attached, often mounted on linen paper, preserved for study or comparison.

 

to the herbarium introduction page here to learn more about some famous herbaria.

Note: Links to external sites are written out because this site is designed to be used in classrooms NOT hooked to the internet. Interested students and teachers can print out the URL and access it from home or the public library or possibly the school's library.

Support school funding to provide internet access, please.

Here is what is handy to get started. Do what you can...you don't have to be perfectly outfitted to start. The idea is to START!

Equipment for your field expeditions:

• an easy to carry notebook; a small one that fits in a pocket would be handy (and several pencils/pens). You will write down notes as you collect....and these notes should be transferred (after the plant is drying in the press back in the clasrroom) to your full size notebook or card catalog. You will write down any info that might be useful in addition to
  • the plant's name if you know it
  • locality...(where it was collected) look at a map to help give names or coordinates
  • date of collecting it
  • any useful information you have gathered; describe the area...dry? moist? shady?; notes on the colors which might fade, the smell and so forth
    
• a "field press"; the job of the field press is to keep stuff from curling up and getting weird, so any stiff boards with pieces of newspaper between them and big rubber bands, bungee cords or belts around them to keep the boards together would work. Keep it light.
  
• sheets of newspaper folded like a book....trimmed to fit in your field press.
  
• zip-loc bags for bringing back plants you want to keep fresh. If you are very picky about how natural they look take a plastic container with a snap-on lid. Wrap it in aluminum foil to reflect sunlight to keep contents cool. Invent a carrying strap for it. (Have aluminum paint in a spray can? Maybe that would stick? Get an adult to try it for you.)
  
• If you want, a camera to record special growing situations or plants you can not collect. If you have practiced sketching plants that is often even better at showing important detail, but it takes more time and you have to be good at it. A camera is also important if you are collecting pieces of a large plant, like a tree or shrub. The photo will show the whole plant's growing habit.
  
• Some sort of a small pick. A garden trowel can't cope with stony soil so botanists use little picks. They are hard to find so you will have to be clever. My suggestion is a mason's hammer which at least has one end that will work. Use it when collecting minerals. too. A trowel is better than nothing...and good enough if you are not in stony or dry places.
• Garden shears to cut small twigs. Many collectors use pocket knives for all-purpose tools but students may not use these at school. Blunt, strong scissors would be useful. Don't carry stuff that would kill you if you slipped and fell on it!!!...please!!!!!

Back at home you need:

• press boards that are sturdy (12 x 17 inches)...and heavy stuff to put on top of them, like stones or iron scrap, and more newspaper or blotting paper to absorb moisture; for tiny plants and just leaves you can get away with using an old telephone book weighted down. If you know anyone in the building trades you should be able to easily get some scrap plywood....ask politely if anyone would cut it to size! A screw press is handy but not necessary.
• sheets of corrugated cardboard that have only one flat side; this speeds up drying as air can flow around the paper your plant is on and take away the moisture. Look around, you may find some. If you don't you will just have to wait longer and change papers more often. It is used as packing; I just got some wrapped around a book that came in the mail.
• sheets of heavy whitish paper (11 1/2 x 16 3/8 inches is traditional) This paper, if you plan to keep the prepared specimen for longer than 5 years, should be of an archival quality paper. "Archival quality" means the paper will not fall apart with age, or effect your specimen, because of the acids contained in the paper fiber. The term "acid free" is on packages of some paper that has been treated to be an archival paper. Some paper made from fibers like cotton or linen are more naturally acid free. (That is why ancient books that are 500 years old are in great condition while new books 50 years old are trash sometimes...there were no high acid papers made from trees used in ancient times.)
  
• labels... see the label in the picture? It is on the lower right corner. (CLICK HERE to go to a page of labels to print out...then photocopy them)
  Labels contain the following information:
  • the plant's name
  • locality...(where it was collected)
  • date of collecting it
  • collector's name (you)
  • any use information you have gathered
    
• glue, scissors, tweesers/forceps and like that
  
• a portfolio to store the finished sheets in.... anything that keeps your sheets flat and away from sunlight. Professional herbarium curators also worry about bugs eating their specimens. If you have that problem, worry about it then... and look up solutions.

Hit the road! Pick a day when it is dry outside so the plants are not overly damp and harder to dry out.

When you get to where you want to collect, take a minute and look around and think.

• How much stuff does it look like you are interested in today? Plan your time...if there is way too much to collect today just start with the plants that are most important to you. For instance, some plants go dormant and "disappear" in the summer, or they die after setting seed..or...
  
• If there are delicate plants and big tough ones, start with the small or delicate ones. Carefully put them in the bags. Pick extra flowers or whatever if it looks like they might fall apart. That way you will have at least one to press for your page.
  Big tough stuff can be tagged and bundled together in a shorter amount of time.
  
• Don't forget...you want to collect the roots or whatever is under the ground! Bulbs, rhizomes, tubers all need to be documented.
  In school we may decide, since there are so many of us, to have one person collect te root for a display that belongs to the classroom. Others can collect representative pieces of the plant. "A representative piece" is one that clearly shows the leaves and how they grow off the stem and the flower or seed if it is that time of year.
  Do you need a quick simple sketch of how the stems join together? A measurement of the size of the whole plant?...the average size of the plants there?
  What do you want to learn from your plant? Do you have what you need to learn it? Is collecting the only way to learn it?
  
• When you have the plant in your hand, gently knock off the dirt from the roots. Take a folded piece of newspaper and slip the plant inside. Place in you field press. Large, woody or lumpy things can be rolled into a bundle with the newspaper. Be sure to take your field notes as you collect. Assign each new plant a number and write the number on a tag or in the paper with the plant. A simple tag is a piece of paper with a slit in it slipped over a stem.
  
• Wear a hat that shades your face and a sunscreen. Collecting can keep you in the sun for a long time and we don't need you to destroy your skin cells to do it. If you understand the science of sunburn you will be so grossed out you will take care to avoid it! Tell your clueless friends if you think they might listen. (How about doing a science fair project on sunburn! It would be a public service and there is a lot of information on it and some dramatic pictures.!?)

A Pressing Engagement: (back in the classroom or home)

Unpack your plant specimens. Is there anything that looks like you had better deal with it first? If a plant looks like it will curl up and get strange, do that one first...get it in a press before it is too late!

For a while you need to think like a scientist and an artist. When you arrange you plant on a folded newspaper to put in the press you need to arrange the leaves and flowers in a natural way that looks nice. If the plant is too big for the standard 12 x 16 inch paper you have to bend it or snip it so it all fits. If a leaf is HUGE you may have to cut it in half! Read the full length article on this if you have need of advice. Whatever you do, think of how it will look good. Don't just slap it down like a piece of balogna....arrange it!

You make a layer cake in your big press of: corrugated board>a blotter paper>the plant in its folded newspaper>a blotter paper>a corrugated board>a blotter paper>the plant in its folded newspaper>a blotter paper>a corrugated board>etc!

Weight or screw down the press firmly. You don't have to try to squeeze it to death but be firm.

Important: Keep in mind that if the papers around your plants stay damp they will mold. If they mold it trashes your work.
The corrugated layer helps get air into the stack of drying plants to carry away the moisture.....but you should still change the extral blotter papers on the second day and put in dry ones. If you can put your press in the sun and turn it so a breeze blows into the corrugated it helps. More info in full article.

When you change the blotters, change the corrugated if you can. Do not change the folded paper around the specimen. The reason you do not change the newspaper is that a half-dried plant might stick to it and get torn apart in the change....when it is all dry it will slip off.

Mounting the specimen on the herbarium sheet:

 

Study pointers:

• Why do you think it is a good idea to carefully record where a plant was found?
  
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