Herbarium Methodologies

Learn about herbaria and the techniques we use to preserve and study plant specimens. A herbarium is a collection of plant samples preserved for long-term study. These collections are diverse, including pressed, dried and mounted plants, seeds, wood sections, pollen, microscope slides, frozen DNA extractions, and fluid-preserved plant specimens (esp. flowers or fruits). The practice of herbarium taxonomy encompasses specialized techniques used to preserve and study the collections stored in a herbarium.