Biol 3306 Plant Collection Project

We will provide plant presses and hand lenses.

• Plant press (check out in class) and newspapers, blotter paper, cardboard for the press
• Hand lens (checked out in class)
• Field notebook and pencil/pen (prefer bound notebooks)
• GPS or GPS phone app for marking geographical location records. Record the latitude and longitude of each specimen.
• Pocket knife or garden trowel for digging small plants
• Optional: a shovel to dig out large plants with deep roots
• Masking tape and sharpie are useful for marking individual plants (tape around bunch or stem) when collecting if pressing later.
• If you will collect several specimens and then press them all at once a bit later, a plastic bag is helpful. Use a plastic garbage bag with a moist paper towel inside. Make sure the bag is large enough for the plants you are going to collect that day. This is for collecting while walking around and keeping specimens in suitable condition for pressing later that day.

You do not always need to carry the press to the field, you can press back at your vehicle or even at home or lab. However, you do want to press as soon after collecting as possible with the caveat that species identification is often easier BEFORE pressing.

To make a good herbarium specimen, plants collected should have intact organs such as leaf, stem, root (for small plants), flower (usually necessary for identification) and fruit (if present). For large plants such as shrub and trees, root is not required for collection, however, for herb and grass, root is usually collected along with and is attached to aerial parts.

At the time of collection, collector should take notes in a field notebook about the possible characteristics for identification (especially whether the plant is an annual or perennial), collection date, collector, collection number (continuous personal collection numbers for you lifetime), habitat characteristics including soil type and co-existing plants, color of fresh flower, leaves, fruits, scent, and plant size and any other pertinent information that may not be obtained from the resulted specimen. Use only one page per collected specimen so as to leave room for notes during later identification using taxonomic keys.

Take a photo or several of the plant before you collect. Note the photo number/file name in your collection notes. This is useful for identification and can also be uploaded to iNaturalist (but see below for instructions and warnings!)

It is helpful to have extra plant materials if you are not able to key the plants out at the scene as plant identification usually requires dissection of the plant material.

Collected material should be stored in a plastic bag. You can collect multiple plants into a large bag; simply use masking tape to label each one with its collection number. Inside the bag, place some moist paper power to prevent the plant from wilting. If you are going to press the plant in the field, take newspaper and plant press with you. You can store plants for 24 hours usually in a refrigerator in the bag without damage. But plan to identify and press soon.

Open a single newspaper sheet and place the plant flat between the two halves. Lay out plant parts with all diagnostic characteristics viewable from a single side (eg one leaf turned with top surface up, another with the bottom up). Make sure both sides of the leaves are visible, and turn flowers/fruits in various directions so the fronts, sides and backs of them are visible. Long, slender plants can be folded in a zigzag fashion or clipped in strategic locations to fit inside the newspaper sheet. Bulky parts and fleshy fruits can often be halved or sliced before pressing. Odd fragments (bark or large hard fruits) should be kept in numbered or labeled envelopes or packs and attached to the main specimen.

Always write down collection number on the newspaper, plastic bag and notebook along with other information. Make sure the collection number on your collection bag, newspaper and field notebook always match. Use the lower right margin on the newspaper to put the id number. When you have made a tentative id, you can add that to the newspaper as well.

If you are going to mount the specimen you are collecting, think ahead about how you are going to lay out the specimen on a mounting paper to make it identifiable to people who use it as a learning resource. Once the material dried out during press, you can’t change the layout anymore.

Reference: https://www.brit.org/plant-collection-and-preservation .

I will teach the basics of plant identification by using my own simple key to plant families and by using floras (plant id books) that contain dichotomous keys. I will also teach you how to use iNaturalist, which is an app and community project for collecting species records. Please be careful using this app and learn to use it correctly because improperly entered records pollute the data.