THE HERBARIUM HANDBOOK

Edited by

Diane Bridson and Leonard Forman

Revised Edition

ROYAL BOTANIC GARDENS

KEW

CONTENTS
page
INTRODUCTION

1. What is taxonomy?
2. The development, purpose and types of herbaria

2
4

THE HERBARIUM BUILDING, COLLECTIONS AND MATERIALS

3.
4.
5.
6.

The herbarium building and specimen storage

Pests and treatments
Materials
Label design and production

8
14
27
46

HERBARIUM TECHNIQUES AND MANAGEMENT

7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.

Centralized accessioning, recording and dispatch procedures

Processing unmounted specimens
Mounting herbarium specimens
Conservation of sheets
Plant names (nomenclature)
The arrangement of herbarium collections
Ancillary collections
Collections of illustrations and photographs
Handling herbarium specimens
Incorporation (filing or laying-in) of mounted specimens
Curation of special groups
Duplicate distribution
Loans to other institutions
Visitors
Removal of samples from herbarium material
Essential herbarium literature

52
60
65
79
84
89
94
98
104
107
112
116
119
122
124
128

ADDITIONAL TECHNIQUES
23. Rearrangement of herbarium collections according to new
publications
24. The dissection of floral organs and preservation of the results
25. Illustration
26. The photographic copying of herbarium sheets
27. Collectors, itineraries, maps and gazetteers
28. Check-lists
29. Introduction to computers

133
144
151
162
163
172
175

COLLECTING
30. Collecting and preserving specimens
31. Collecting materials for ancillary disciplines
32 The collection of pteridophytes
33. The collection and curation of bryophytes
34. The collection and curation of Algae
35. The collection and preservation of fungi (including lichens)
36. The collection of living material
37. Collecting for a seed bank
38. Photography and fieldwork

193
226
232
235
237
242
252
258
261

THE HERBARIUM IN A WIDER CONTEXT

39. Economic botany and the herbarium
40. Ecology and the herbarium
41. Conservation and the herbarium

265
273
277

REFERENCES

281

INDEX

291