Herbarium And Plant Collection Methods

Presented By: Mubin SaiyadNIF-India

Topics covered• Herbarium– Purpose to collect herbarium.– Methods of making herbarium.– Simple plant collection methods.– Arrangement and caring of Herbarium sheets.– Herbarium collection in NIF.

HERBARIUM A Collection of dried plant specimen, mounted on

sheets. Bank of plant specimens. Reference center for verification of Identification,

Documentation facility and a storehouse. A dried plant Library.

• Traditionally, the dried specimens are mounted on sheets of paper and filed in folders in cabinets.

• These specimens can last for hundreds of years when give proper care and protection from damage from insects, light and humidity.

• Herbarium specimens allow you to show someone distinctive morphological characters important for correct identification.

Why do we collect Herbarium?

• To Allow and support accurate identification of plants.• To provide a permanent record for a species occurring

at a particular time and place.• To form the basis of reliable distribution, habit and habitat

information.• To document the introduction and spread of invasive

weeds over time.• To provide the basic biological material for

taxonomists, ecologists and other researchers.

Methods of Making Herbarium

There are four main aspects to making good herbarium specimens:

Collection Pressing & Preserving Mounting Labeling

Simple methods of Plant Collection• Equipment:

– Digger or Pick– Knife/Cutter– Trowel– Field plant press/ Vasculum(Collecting can)– Bloating papers/Newspapers

• Generally whole plant with roots or any other underground parts are to be taken for plant sample. But in case of large trees or the plant having height more than 4 feet the twig with leaves and fruit/flower are to be taken.

• It should be necessary that the plant sample having leaves and fruit/flower.

• In some plant species the male and female plants are different. In that case the flower must be necessary.

Important points for collecting good plant specimen

• If possible you should select the mature plant parts. Morphology of Young plant parts may be different than mature one. It will cause the wrong identification.

• To cut the plant you should use blade or cutter not with hand.

• While collecting the creepers you should take care that the other plant parts are not to be taken with it.

• If possible take a photograph(showing plant parts clearly) of the plant in its natural habitat.

At the time of collection you should have a small notebook and following details you should be noted down;

– Plant Habit:- Herb, Shrub, Tree, climber etc.– Color of flower,– Local name of plant,– Date and time of collection,– Locality of plant,– If plant having and latex of other liquid material you should

also note it. It will help to better identification.

Pressing the plant sample Pressing means to apply enough pressure to hold the plant in a

position that best displays the botanical features while drying. Plant press is used for pressing the plant specimens. Press only one specimen per page. The leaves, flowers and other structures should be arranged in as

natural manner as possible on the newspaper while at the same time trying to avoid excessive overlap and crowding.

Trim the excess material in a way that it is clearly observed that material was removed from the place(s).

Both surfaces(Dorsal and Ventral) of leaves should be seen to observe certain characters.

Reproductive structures should be accessible for study. At least some flowers should be spread open so that the internal structures will be visible for examination.

Change the paper after 24 hours till completely dried. Five to Ten days is typical for plants in a press without any

heat source to get dried.

Safety measures for sending the specimens

Once the specimens have been dried, they are mounted on a paper sheet.

The plant specimens can be strapped with linen or cotton thread, knotted on the reverse side of the sheet or attached to the paper using thin strips of transparent adhesive tapes or cellulose tapes.

Care should be taken while packing to avoid damage during transportation.

The specimen sheet should be put between file covers, shredded papers or thermocol sheets to fill the empty space.

Mounting specimens on Herbarium sheets

The completely dried specimen then mounted on Herbarium sheets which has specific size of 42×28 cm.

To mount, one of the following methods would be found convenient;1) The gum is spread on a glass plate and specimen is

laid on it. As soon as all the parts come in contact with gum, it is lifted and then placed in a position on a mounting sheet.

2) The specimen is inverted and painted with gum by a brush and then transferred to a mounting sheet.

3) The specimen is placed on a herbarium sheet and small strips of gummed tape or cellulose tape are pasted at suitable places, so that most of the part remain loose.

• After mounting the specimen, a label is pasted in the right hand lower corner of the sheet.

• This carries information regarding Botanical name of the plant, common name, date, collector’s name, place of location.

Arrangement of Herbarium sheets

• Herbarium sheets are placed horizontally in steel almirahs divided into shelves of appropriate sizes.

• The herbarium sheets are arranged into groups according to species, genera, families, classes, orders, series and sub-divisions etc.

• Each Herbarium sheet is placed in species cover which is slightly larger than herbarium sheets, and species cover in placed in Genus covers.

CARING THE HERBARIUM SHEETS

• Herbarium sheets are often attacked by museum pests, fungi etc. To guard against them;– specimen are fumed with carbon bisulphide, 3-4 times a

year.– Mounted specimen may also be treated with mercuric

chloride or copper sulphate.– Sometimes powdered naphthalene balls or gamaxene

powder be also spread from time to time.– Usually the herbarium is fumigated after every three

years to keep the specimens intact for decades.

Largest Herbaria in World

Largest Herbaria in IndiaName Location Numbers of specimens

(Approximate)

Central National Herbarium

India, Kolkata, West Bengal

2,000,000

Forest Research Institute,Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education

India, Dehradun, Uttar Pradesh

340,000

Botanical Survey of India,Southern Regional Centre

India, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu

259,000

Botanical Survey of India,Eastern circle

India, Shillong, Meghalaya 225,000

French Institute of Pondicherry

India, Pondicherry, Puducherry

220,000

St. Xavier’s College, Blatter Herbarium

India, Mumbai, Maharashtra

200,000

Agharkar Research Institute

India, Pune, Maharashtra 28,000

Botanical Survey of India,Deccan Regional Centre

India, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh

11,000

HERBARIUM at NIF-India• No. of Herbarium sheets-Up to

5000+;• No. of Scanned plant samples-4295;– No. of plant species-1300

(approx.) belonging families-194.

Crude Drugs

Root-45

Stem-23Leaves-107Bark-50Rhizomes-12Whole Plants & Aerial Parts-

119Flower-19Fruit-23Seeds-50

448 crude drug samples are in Crude Drug Repository of NIF-India.

REFERENCES• A Field Guide For Ethnobotanical Documentation

By: S. Karuppusamy• Scouting & Documentation of Grassroots

Innovations & Traditional Knowledge- A ManualBy: NIF-India

• Taxonomy of AngiospermsBy: A. V. S. S. Sambamurty

• Practical BotanyBy: Dr. Ashok Bendre & Dr. Ashok Kumar

• Techniques and Procedures for Collecting, Preserving, Processing, and Storing Botanical Specimens

A working paper of Province of British Columbia Ministry of Forests Research Program

THANK YOU