In the Herbarium: The Hidden World of Collecting and Preserving Plants

Herbaria are essential for plant science, allowing scientists to document and research plant changes and biodiversity over time. They have historical, aesthetic, cultural, and ethnobotanical value and are used by biologists, gardeners, artists, students, and citizen-scientists.

Format: Hardback
Length: 336 pages
Publication date: 25 July 2023
Publisher: Yale University Press

Collections of preserved plant specimens, known as herbaria, have existed for nearly five centuries, serving as invaluable resources for scientists. These pressed and labeled plants have enabled researchers to describe and differentiate species, document and research plant changes and biodiversity over time, including those related to climate.

Maura C. Flannery delves into the history of herbaria, from the earliest collections belonging to advocates of the technique such as sixteenth-century botanist Luca Ghini to the collections of poets, politicians, and painters and the digitization of these precious specimens today. She charts the growth of herbaria during the Age of Exploration, the development of classification systems to organize the collections, and their indispensable role in tracking climate change and molecular evolution.

Herbaria hold historical, aesthetic, cultural, and ethnobotanical value, linking them to Indigenous peoples who used them, collectors who sought them out, and scientists who studied them. This book serves as a testament to the central role of herbaria in the history of plant study and their continued value to biologists, as well as to entirely new users such as gardeners, artists, students, and citizen-scientists.

Weight: 680g
Dimension: 165 x 244 x 27 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780300247916