In this article we will discuss about Herbarium which was initiated by an Italian Taxonomist Luca Ghini:- 1. Meaning of Herbarium 2. Functions of Herbarium 3. Kinds 4. Important Herbaria of the World 5. Making of Herbarium.
Contents:
- Meaning of Herbarium
- Functions of Herbarium
- Kinds of Herbaria
- Important Herbaria of the World
- Making of Herbarium
1. Meaning of Herbarium:
Herbarium is a place where plants collected from far and wide preserved and -pressed in dried condition. They are kept in pigeon holes of almirahs according to any accepted system of classification.
The dried plant is pasted on a sheet. Fleshy members like Cactaceae are preserved in preservative and are not dried. It is a great filing system for information about plants primarily in the form of actual specimens and secondarily in the form of recorded notes on labels attached on the sheets. Herbarium is a vast reservoir of plants.
The art of Herbarium was initiated by an Italian taxonomist Luca Ghini (1490-1556). The concept of preserving plant specimens in dried form is 450 years old. The oldest preserved herbarium specimen is kept in Rome, collected by the naturalist Gherardo Cibo a pupil of Luca Ghini (1532).
Luca Ghini made many plant collecting journeys in Italy. The plants were presented in this way by him and the first herbarium of the world was established in 1545 in University of Padua, Italy. The first Botanic Garden was also established in the same year.
The word ‘Herbarium’ was originally applied not to collection of plants but to a book dealing with medicinal herbs. Tourneforte (1700) used two terms as an equivalent to Hortus siccus, which was later on adopted by Linnaeus.
In the middle of 16th Century 3 students of Ghini namely Aldrovondi, Cesalpino (from Italy) and Turner (from England) also made their herbarium. Cesalpino’s herbarium in Firenze is very important and is compared with his book “De plantis libri XVI” introducing a scientific approach to the study and classification of plants. John Falcener prepared Herbarium in 1553.
Dioscorides’s “Materia medica” includes an account of the medicinal use of about 100 plants. As the Renaissance developed in Italy, the Italians began teaching Botany and developed the first ever botanical garden. They prepared ‘Book’ of mounted dried specimens (plants) and called them “Dry gardens” or “Horti Sicci”.
In the earlier times the specimens were mounted on sheets and bound in the form of book. It was continued till the time of Linnaeus. Today the plants are mounted on single sheet and arranged according to classification. The present concept of herbarium collection alongside detailed field data is also due to the experience of botanists over four centuries.
Present day Herbarium sheet has definite size, i.e., 29 x 41 cms. ± 1 cm.
2. Functions of Herbarium:
A modern Herbarium serves valuable functions or utility. Important of them are as follows:
(i) It is an invaluable conservatory of plant material and data.
(ii) It is storehouses of collection including the valuable type specimens. The herbaria greatly aid in all kinds of taxonomic researches.
(iii) Serves as a fundamental resource for identification of all plants of the world.
(iv) It serves as a source for collections biodiversity. Most estimates on global biodiversity today are based on herbarium collection only.
(v) It aids in biodiversity monitoring by carrying out security of herbarium collection to obtain quantitative baseline data on the distribution and abundance of keystone species is essential for all monitoring programmes.
(vi) It serves as a repository of voucher specimens on which varieties Botanical researches are carried out.
(vii) Aids in assessment of conservation status of a taxon.
(viii) Vast collection of a particular species in a herbarium aids in assessing the diversity or variations exhibited by a species in its distributional ranges helping in population biology studies.
(ix) It serves as a source for search of new genetic material for improvement of cultivated stock.
(x) The tags of herbarium carry all the information about habitat, habit, local name, flower colour and other characters of the plant, use of plant, frequency and abundance of species etc. It also includes the morphological description, range of distribution, variation and uses. In this way it provides data for botanical, ethnobotanical and phytogeographical studies etc.
(xi) Herbarium serves as an aid in teaching botany. Dried specimen is available all the time as compared to the fresh plant which may or may not be available. It helps in identifying the newly collected specimen.
(xii) Specimen may be used as a source of material for Anatomy, Palynology and Cytotaxonomy, Ecology, Chemistry, Molecular biology, Pharmacognosy and Environment impact assessment.
(xiii) Seeds of the herbarium specimens can be used to resurrect species extinct in the wild using modern technology.
(xiv) It aids in assessment and cataloguing of all species of economic potential, as commercial species, medicinal herbs, food plants etc.
(xv) It helps in development of computer data base on plants and maintains active links to international network of systematic resources and electronic base.
3. Kinds of Herbaria:
Depending upon the interest of the organization or institution; the labels, contents and notes on the sheets in a herbarium are of different kinds.
(i) Herbaria of Organizations,
(ii) Regional Herbaria,
(iii) Local Herbaria, and
(4) Herbaria of institutions, University, colleges etc.
Herbaria may be of different categories as:
(a) Herbaria of drugs and medicinal plants.
(b) Herbaria of crop plants and weeds in cultivated fields etc.
4. Important Herbaria of the World:
Over 1700 of the world’s most important herbaria are listed in Index Herbarium Part I. Index Herbariorum Part II includes detailed information of plant collectors with present location of specimen. Index xylariorum includes guide to the world’s timber collection.
Table 1 includes some of the major Herbaria of world and the number of specimen present in it.
Minor Herbaria of India:
(1) Botanical survey of India, Andaman and Nicobar circle, Port Blair.
(2) Botanical survey of India, Arid zone circle, Jodhpur.
(3) Botanical survey of India, Sikkim Himalayan circle, Gangtok, Sikkim.
(4) Delhi University Herbarium, Delhi.
(5) Llyod Botanic Garden, Darjeeling.
(6) School of Plant Morphology, Meerut College Meerut. (It contains approximately 25,000 specimens).
5. Making of Herbarium:
Making of herbarium involves collection, drying, poisoning, mounting, stitching, labeling and deposition etc.
i. Collection:
Plants are collected first, angiospermic material must be chosen that should have grown leaves, complete inflorescence, flower and fruit etc. If necessary one has to make many visits to the spot. Size of the material depends upon the requirements and availability. Herbaceous small plant may be collected in toto, i.e., with roots also, but in woody plants 4-6 twigs are sufficient.
One should not collect diseased, infected or inappropriate plant material. The collection should be given a field number. The species should have least 4-6 specimens with same field number. The habit, habitat, flower, colour locality interesting features etc. should be noted down in the field note book.
ii. Drying and Poisoning:
The specimens should be preserved in blotting paper or newspaper folder after spreading it correctly. It should be pressed in field press. After 2, 3 changes the specimen is dried. To keep the specimen away from infectants or pests etc. poisoning is done. Chemicals like corrosive sublimate (HgCh) etc. are either sprayed or painted on the dried specimen.
iii. Mounting, Stitching and Labelling:
Dried specimen are glued (small quantity of mercury chloride, CuSCU, thyme I etc.) stitched on herbarium sheets made up of thick card sheets of 29 x 41 cm ± 1 cm size and labelled. Labels have all the information about Botanical name, Local name, Locality, time, characters, collector’s names etc. After identification the sheet is placed in species cover.
All the species of one genus are placed in one Genus cover, which finally is kept in family cupboard of Herbarium. For keeping the specimen for long time, they should be protected from pests and insects like Silver fish and Book worm etc. DDT spray, copper sulphate solution etc. should be used time to time.
iv. Identification and Determination of Plants:
Usually identification is considered to be the process through which specimen whose name is not known is recognized by its characters to known plant and given the name. Now the practices is stopped since no plants are identical. The process is called determination and the slips are marked Determinovit (Det) slip.
For identification, the scientific method is to first study the character of plant, check them with the flora of the region (locality of collection), work keys and compare with full description and illustration, then it is carefully compared with earlier identified plants of that species or variety.
If the plant does not satisfactorily fit in the key or match in the herbarium, efforts are made to compare it with species of adjacent floras in large herbaria.
After identification the important process is to use correct nomenclature. Always use the latest nomenclature.
Problems in Management:
In the current era of biotechnology and molecular biology the classical subjects like Taxonomy and Herbarium witnessed a great debacle. Herbaria contribute to the development of all biological disciplines. Today herbaria are ignored by so called modern biologists who have least knowledge of the significance of a herbarium.
Some herbaria developed over several decades of efforts of taxonomists are today at the verge of collapse due to wrong impression among the ruling biologists that herbaria are merely a storehouse of collections of dead plants which can not contribute to the national development nor can generate funds for research forgetting that herbaria are 3imply a facility of a database on plants from which all biologists draw their basic information directly or indirectly about the plant species on which they carry out all advanced researches.
A national herbarium like the Central National Herbarium (CNL), Herbarium of the Forest Research Institute Dehradun, and the Herbarium of the National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow are critically endangered due to lack of sufficient trained man power, facility and even due recognition by the so called experimentalists.
Due to over-growth of man modern disciplines the importance of herbaria has faded resulting is damage. According to Dr. Khoshoo the taxonomists are a vanishing tribe among the biologists and are overshadowed by the so called modern biotechnologists and environmentalists.
Herbarium requires large building, curators, tables for researchers and funds for continuous exploration. Funds are not provided for this subject now-a-days so it becomes very difficult it maintain. Policy makers must realize this efforts should be made to maintain the important herbaria and Taxonomists should come up for exploration and maintenance of herbarium.