Herbarium, << hur BAIR ee uhm, >> is an organized collection of dried plants. Herbariums serve an important function in the study of plants. They offer an easy way to examine many kinds of plants or many examples of one particular kind. Herbariums provide a valuable, permanent record of plant life.
Most specimens in a herbarium are glued to sheets of stiff paper. Some specimens, such as mosses, lichens, and fungi, are placed in folded paper packets. Each specimen is labeled with its name, the place and date of collection, the name of the collector, and other information. A good specimen shows all parts of the plant, such as the root, leaf, flower, and fruit. If they are protected from pests and moisture, specimens will last for hundreds of years.
The most valuable specimens in a herbarium are those from which the first descriptions of their kind were made. This is because the most common use of a herbarium is for naming unidentified plant specimens. By making comparisons with original specimens, botanists determine the best name to use for an unidentified specimen. Herbarium collections are also used in studies of plants of a particular kind or of a particular area. A good herbarium has many specimens of each kind of plant from the area in which it is located.
The oldest herbarium in the United States is in Philadelphia, at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University. This herbarium was founded in 1812. The largest herbarium in the United States, and the third largest in the world, is the National Herbarium in Washington, D.C. It has more than 5 million specimens. Only the herbarium of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, England, and the herbarium of the Komarov Botanic Institute in St. Petersburg, Russia, are larger.
