Pressed for time: Understanding the importance of Herbaria.
“A herbarium is better than any illustration; every botanist should make one” — Carl Linnaeus
What Are Herbaria?
A herbarium is a collection of dried plant samples mounted on sheets of paper and stored in cabinets for preservation and research purposes. It is like a library, but rather than books filled with words, there are dry, flattened plants with information to aid in different ways. The samples in a herbarium are normally collected in nature and represent diverse plant species, including rare, endangered, and extinct plants.
Types Of Herbaria & Their Functions
There are four types of herbaria, and these are:
- International
- National
- Local and
- Special herbaria.
The functions of these herbaria (excluding special herbaria) include contributing to important floras, producing national and local floras, producing checklists, loaning out material, providing facilities for visiting researchers, and identifying material for studies, such as board taxonomic studies and monographic studies of genera.
Special herbaria are then divided into:
- Historic herbaria
- Herbaria with limited coverage
- Herbaria for training and
- Herbaria for special research projects.
Historic herbaria usually form part of a more prominent institute and act as time capsules that let us see what plants looked like. They mainly contain collections kept in their original sequence and don’t loan out specimens but have a microfiche form available. This allows us to use them to study changes in plant populations over time and to glimpse into what medicine and agriculture looked like.
Historic herbaria enable us to study the past and use that knowledge to better understand and protect the plant life around us.
Herbaria with limited coverage focus on specific samples, e.g. trees or specific plant families, and are used to perform particular tasks such as identifying rare species and conserving medicinal plants. Herbaria for training is used to train students and has material that informs you about a plant's importance and characteristic. Herbaria for special research projects are used for research and are usually part of a university herbarium.
One Importance of Herbaria
One specific use of herbarium specimens I have encountered is their application in conservation biology. Herbarium specimens can provide valuable information about plant populations, including their distribution, abundance, and genetic diversity. By examining herbarium specimens, researchers can identify changes in plant populations over time, such as declines in population size or shifts in species ranges. This information can inform conservation strategies, such as habitat restoration or protected area designation.
For example, a recent study by Romeiras et al. used herbarium specimens and bibliographic data to combat the scarcity of biodiversity information and to investigate and identify Angola’s main timber trees. Using herbaria, this study found 18 critical species of high commercial and economic value, most of which were found to be threatened or near-threatened globally or lacked formal conservation assessments. Due to this study, it was found that at least 11 of these species should be given high conservation priority as they are of global conservation.
This study provided a first approximation for timber tree species prioritization in Angelo, which may be a helpful guide for future conservation decisions. This information can be used to prioritize conservation efforts for the species, including habitat restoration and population monitoring. But for a solid basis to be made, more herbarium presses would need to be collected for the conservation and sustainable use of forest resources in Angelo.
Herbaria serve as a critical resource for understanding and conserving plant biodiversity. Through their use in scientific research, education, and conservation, herbarium specimens provide a window into the history and future of our planet’s plant life.
