herbarium

One of the options for Plant Science is Field Botany. One of the Field Botany options is to visit an Herbarium. What’s an herbarium? That was my first question, too. In short, an herbarium is a collection of plant samples preserved for long-term study. It’s a lot more interesting than it sounds.

The requirements are:
a. Write ahead and arrange to visit an herbarium at a university, park, or botanical garden; OR, visit an herbarium website (with your parent’s permission). Yeah, we all know the website option is supposed to be for those people with transportation issues. You’ll get a lot more from it if you visit the website AND the physical location. The UW’s Herbarium is conveniently right next to the Medical Center.

b. Tell how the specimens are arranged and how they are used by researchers. If possible, observe voucher specimens of a plant that is rare in your state. They’re arranged by family, genus, and species. The most common use is by people writing books.

c. Tell how a voucher specimen is mounted and prepared for permanent storage. Tell how specimens should be handled so that they will not be damaged. They’re stored in acid-free, lignin-free paper. While we were there, one volunteer was transferring seeds from thousands of decades-old folded paper into a better quality paper. She had to relabel, by hand, every specimen.

d. Tell about the tools and references used by botanists in an herbarium. Biggest tool they have? A freezer. Yep. Just like you have in your kitchen. They freeze the plants and seeds first to kill bacteria and insects. Very low-tech for a high-tech field!

The web work they’re doing is great! You could spend hours and hours just in the plant identification section. While we were there, Dr. Giblin walked us through several different sections, showing us various ways to search and sort. Who knew there was such diversity in Washington?

This was a very interesting trip. I was surprised at how much there was to know, and can see how someone could make this their life’s mission.

1. plant science | Boy Scouts on the Kitsap Peninsula Says:
   February 21st, 2010 at 10:28 pm

   [...] Visit the Burke Museum Herbarium. [...]

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