Herbariums are evocative places. As collections of stored plant material, they offer an insight into the past, present and future of our planet. An invaluable resource for academics and businesses, they are often part of revered institutions, such as botanical gardens and universities.
Housing a vast array of plant material, including seeds, stems, foliage and root matter, herbariums provide an opportunity to look back at specimens and collection data from the past. This provides priceless insight into how plants, climate and topography have changed over time.
The William and Lynda Steere Herbarium is located at The New York Botanical Garden and houses a vast collection of 7,800,000 plant and fungi specimens. The largest in the Western world, it is a hub for the NYBG’s botanical research program. Here, we delve into the herbarium world to uncover more about why they are so valuable today.
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What is a Herbarium?
A sample of Paeonia officinalis collected by Steven R Hill on 18th May 1986, held in the Steere Herbarium
(Image credit: NYBG Steere herbarium)
As a collection of plant material that is preserved and recorded for close study, a herbarium holds a wealth of data and knowledge.
‘Botanists collect plants in the way people have traditionally pressed plants: a piece of plant, in flower or fruit is collected and placed into a plant press (made up of wooden slats and secured with straps: plants are pressed and dried in newspapers, between blotters and corrugates),’ explains Herbarium Curation Manager at Kew Gardens, UK, Nina Davies.
‘At the herbarium, specimens are identified against the main preserved collections, matched against the species they resemble. Care is taken to prepare and mount specimens before they are incorporated into the sequence of a collection.’
While dried and mounted plant samples make up the majority of any collection, other specimens include loose seeds, pollen, wood cross sections, dried bulky fruits, algae, fungi, silica-stored materials and fluid-preserved flowers or fruit.
The Economic Botany Collection at Royal Botanical Gardens Kew, UK
(Image credit: Steve Lancefield © RBG Kew)
Whilst the herbarium building at Kew dates from 1852, The Steere Herbarium in New York has a more futuristic feel.
‘At NYBG, our purpose-built facility is a state-of-the-art, 69,000-square-foot building with specimens housed across four full floors,’ says Director Emily Sessa.
‘These are massive, carefully ordered rooms lined with floor-to-ceiling cabinets on rolling compactors to maximize specimen storage space.
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‘There is a distinctive sound and scent to the herbarium: quiet except for the hum of HVAC units working to keep the temperature and humidity low and infused with the smell of old paper and dried plants.’
Why These Collections Are Valuable To Us Today
Inside the Herbarium at Royal Botanical Gardens Kew, UK
(Image credit: RBG Kew Steve Lancefield)
These painstakingly catalogued specimens provide a direct and personal link to the past.
‘While our herbarium infrastructure is rigorously modern, details like hand-written labels and carefully arranged specimen material connect you to the people who made these collections over the course of many decades, and who were engaged in the same endeavour as us, to understand and preserve the remarkable biodiversity of our planet,’ says Emily Sessa.
Nina adds, ‘Each specimen is a unique data point, collected from a certain place and time, providing scientists with collections essential to describe new species, providing data for conservation assessments, climate studies, to extract DNA and biochemicals to name a few.’
Emily Sessa
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Emily B. Sessa is the Patricia K. Holmgren Director of the William and Lynda Steere Herbarium, NYBG
Emily B. Sessa is the Patricia K. Holmgren Director of the William and Lynda Steere Herbarium at the New York Botanical Garden. She is a botanist and plant systematist whose research focuses on the ecology and evolution of ferns and lycophytes. A member of the Science leadership team at the New York Botanical Garden, Emily continues to conduct research on fern systematics, historical biogeography, and responses to environmental change.
Nina Davies
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Assistant Curator, Identification and Naming, Herbarium, Royal Botanical Garden Kew, UK
Nina first joined the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in 2007 as a student and has been a member of staff since 2010. She is responsible for leading on the curation of the Herbarium collections of more than 6 million specimens. Her research interests are focused on the coffee family (Rubiaceae), particularly on identifying the plants of Africa and Madagascar.
How Herbariums Are Looking To The Future
Herbarium collections, such as that at Kew are an invaluable resource for technical advances and conservation
(Image credit: RBG Kew/ Ines Stuart-Davidson)
Across the world herbariums are diligently digitizing their collections to make them accessible to scholars, scientists, historians, conservationists and horticulturalists.
DNA analysis is helping to accurately identify species, clarify evolutionary evidence and inform future conservation plans too.
This rise in detail and accessible data has led to ground-breaking discoveries as Dr Matthew Pace, Assistant Curator to the Steere Herbarium explains.
‘A 2010 paper estimated there are approximately 70,000 plant species that remain to be described, and that natural history collections such as the William and Lynda Steere Herbarium are a primary source for finding new species,’ he says.
‘NYBG is a global leader in systematics and biodiversity science, and many of the species we describe face acute conservation concerns.’
Matthew Pace
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Assistant Curator of Steere Herbarium
As Assistant Curator to the Herbarium, Matthew Pace serves two complementary roles: 1) Herbarium management and curation, and 2) Conduct original systematic research focusing on the megadiverse orchid family. Matthew’s duties as Herbarium Manager include curation of the collections to reflect advances in systematic understanding, facilitate the use of the Herbarium, giving tours of the herbarium to a vast number of different groups, and grant writing to support digitization and curatorial efforts.
If you are inspired to savour and enjoy your own plant collection for years to come, then you can familiarise yourself with these DIY seed storage ideas, and be sure to avoid these seed harvesting and collecting mistakes.