Herbarium: A herbarium is a collection of dried, pressed, and preserved plants mounted on paper sheets, properly labeled, systematically arranged and available for reference or study. A book, case or room containing an orderly collection of dried plants is called a herbarium.

Majority of the world’s famous herbaria originated from botanical gardens. The first herbarium was set up at Pisa in Italy by a professor of botany Luca Ghini. His students bound the paper sheets having plant specimens mounted on them into book volumes, and spread the art of herbarium throughout Europe. Linnaeus started storing the paper sheets with plants mounted on them in piles, a practice followed even today.

Important Herbaria of the World: Museum of Natural History, Paris; Royal Botanical Garden, Kew; Komarov Botanical Institute, St. Petersburg, Leningrad; New York Botanical Gardens; U.S. National Herbarium Washington; British Museum of Natural History, London; National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow, and many more.

Roles of Herbaria

1. The primary role of herbaria is to prepare pressed, dried plants; store them in cabinets; protect them from attacks by fungi and insects; and offer them for study, when needed.
2. Herbaria have become centers for research in plant taxonomy, morphology, distribution and some other fields. Now a day, the herbaria supply information on endangered species.
3. Many herbaria have arrangements for training the interested persons in herbarium practices- collection, pressing, drying, mounting, labeling, storing and protecting plant specimens.
4. Herbaria offer a facility for identification of plant specimens on site as well as by post.
5. Type Specimens, on the description of which the species names are established, are kept in safe rooms with limited access.

Herbarium Techniques: The dried specimens are pasted on the herbarium sheets in the following ways: Pressed and dried specimens are mounted on a thick paper or a card sheet by sewing or with some adhesive. Small paper envelops, called fragment packets, having seeds or extra flowers are attached to the paper sheet. A printed label giving the information in fixed on lower right corners of herbarium sheet like Name of institute, scientific name of Plants, Common names, Family, Locality, Collection number, etc. The Specimens are suitably treated to make them pest free like silverfish, beetles.

Regular field visits are needed for the collection of specimens. Certain simple tools are needed for the collection and preservation of specimens or their parts. For instance, in the fields, scissor is needed for cutting twigs and knife for woody twigs; a pole with a hook for collecting parts of tall trees and diggers for digging roots.