DIRECTIONS FOR FINAL PREPARATION OF COLLECTIONS

PLANT BIOLOGY 109, SUMMER VERSION

Each specimen should be set up as follows:
Dried plant should be enclosed in a piece of folded newspaper.  Use Seven Days, the Cynic, or similar free newspaper, as the shape of the paper is better.  REMEMBER: the size of the final specimen should be suitable for mounting on 11.5”X16”paper.  Your collection label should be inserted deep into the fold of the newspaper with the plant but not taped to the paper or the plant.

You may mount your plants if you want to.   Buy herbarium mounting paper from the Univ. Store.   Dilute Elmer’s Glue  1:1 with water and spread on a cookie sheet or the like.   Drop the dried specimen onto the glue on the cookie sheet, lift it off with a tweezers or the like, and gently drop it onto the herbarium sheet.   Dry between sheets of wax paper and cardboard, with a weight at the top of the stack.   Takes a day to dry.

Labels:
Labels should be printed on a computer.   They should be neatly designed and carefully cut square.  

A template for the labels is available here, as a microsoft word file.  It's probably best to print this file and use it as stock in your printer -- it is difficult  (but not impossible) to use as a file on which to write.

Required label information:
Latin genus and species, author(s) of genus and species.    Family

Political location: State, county, town.   Locate collection source within town to a permanent feature, such as a municipal park, a water body, a street, or a public institution.

Ecological information: include light level (sun, partial shade, shade, deep shade), moisture level (use words like dry, wet, swampy, pond margin, marsh), and substrate character (ledge, gravel, sand, rich soil, etc.)

Morphological information not preserved in drying–if needed– including latex, odor of crushed foliage, color of flowers.

At the bottom, your name and collection number on the left, the collection date on the right.

The whole collection:
should be organized by family in alphabetical order, then by genus and species alphabetically.

The entire set of plants should then be put into a portfolio, into your plant press, or into anything else that will keep the whole set of plants neatly together.

You must include with your collection a list of your plants.   The list should have for each species the genus, species, author, and family, e.g.   Butomus umbellatus L. Butomaceae.  The list should be in the same order as the collection.