Development & establishment of new Herbaria

Herbarium- It is a store house of dried and pressed plant specimens collected from different places, which are mounted on appropriate sheets and arranged according to some known system of classification. Some fleshy members like Cactaceae are preserved in liquid preservatives while bulky plant parts like dry fruits, cones of Gymnosperms, etc. are dried without pressing and stored in special boxes.

            According to Fosberg and Sachet (1965) a modern herbarium is a great filing system for information about plants, primarily in form of actual specimen and secondarily in form of published information, pictures and recorded notes.

Functional aspect of Herbarium-

   1.      Herbarium serves as an invaluable conservatory of plant material of flora, collected from various regions of the world. It provides basic material for study of flora and vegetation of different places or regions. It acts as evidence of the vegetation of a region which may be destroyed due to some natural process.

   2.      Specimens carry important data about habitat, habit, local names, color of flowers, local uses, frequency of plant, association, etc. Thus in such way herbarium provides data for botanical, ethno-botanical and phyto-geographical studies.

   3.      It acts as important aid in teaching botany to students in form illustrations of locally available plant species in preserved conditions.

   4.      Herbaria are useful in almost all types of taxonomic research especially for correct identification and nomenclature of plants under study.

     5.      Some time herbarium specimens may useful in study of anatomy, palynology and chemo-taxonomical studies.

    6.      It also provide data related to place of occurrence, colour of flowers, flowering and fruiting period, embryology, cytology, ecology and ethno-botanical aspects.

Different Types of Herbarium:

1.      Collection of different parts of the world.

2.      Herbarium related with drugs and medicines.

3.      Herbaria of University and Colleges contain specimens only of interest for teaching or as per the syllabus and research.

4.      Herbaria of Agriculture Colleges and universities include specimens of crop plants and weeds of cultivated fields.

Method of preparing a Herbarium:

a)    Plant collection- Plant collection should be collected from different localities and habitats in every stage of their growth and reproduction. Specimen (at least 6) containing all possible plant parts for easy identification is very important for authentic taxonomic study. At the time of collection tagging is important to understand place, date, flowering period, flowering colour, etc.

b)    Pressing & drying of plants- Blotting sheets are normally used for plant pressing. Plants should be fold in various shapes as ‘V’, ‘N’ to avoid folding and overlapping. Plants should be pressed for 24 or 48 hours & changing should be done every after 2-3 days.

c)     Mounting and labeling of the specimens- After drying plants should be mounted on herbarium sheet of 29cm X 42 cm size. Labeling is essential to get all possible information about the plant.

d)    Storage of Herbarium sheets- The mounted plant specimens or herbarium sheets may be stored in specially constructed herbarium cases or in steel cabinets. They should be arranged according to known system of classification. In India & most of other countries Bentham & Hooker’s system of classification is being used. Chemicals like 2% Mercuric chloride should be utilized to avoid mold fungi & insects. Moth balls, Napthalene flakes may also be placed in Herbarium cabinets.

Requirements:

Field equipments-

i.   Digger & pruning knife

ii. Tags/Paper slips with threads

iii.     Vasculum

iv.     Field Note Book

v.       Plant Press or folders

 Some important Herbarium of the world:

Sr. No.	Name of Herbarium	Date of establishment	Major contribution
1.	RBG, Kew, London	1853	65,00,000 specimens
2.	Museum National Histoire Naturelle Laboratoire de Phanerogamie, Paris, France	1635	50,00,000 specimens
3.	New York BG, US	1801	30,00,000 sheets
4.	Harvard University, Philadelphia Academy of Science, Philadelphia, US	1812	10,00,000 sheets

Some of Indian Herbarium

Sr. No.	Name of Herbarium	Date of establishment	Major contribution
1.	IBG, Calcutta	1793	25,00,000 sheets
2.	FRI, Dehradun	1874	2,00,000 sheets
3.	Agriculture College Herbarium, Coimbatore	1874	2,00,000 sheets
4.	NBRI, Lucknow	1948	1,15,000

Catalogue of Indian Herbaria

India with only 2.4% of the land area, accounts for 7-8% of the recorded species of the world primarily due to varied ecological and altitudinal conditions. This part of the world is a home about 1,01,649 vascular plants species of which 19,371 species are endemic to this region and 5447 species are reported to be endangered. Out of the 34 biodiversity hotspots of the world, four hotspots namely Himalayas, Indo-Burma, Mountains of South China and Western Ghats and Sri Lanka are existing in this region which together harbor about 41,415 species of which 16,709 are endemic to these hotspots. India and China are also recognized as two of the seventeen mega-diversity centres of the world.

            Herbaria, being the repositories of plants, provide the basis for an analytical study of the vegetation of a region for evolving strategies for effective conservation and sustainable utilization. It may even be possible that herbaria may provide the source for learning the Meteria Medica of the local people, a knowledge which might have evolved by the local people practicing for thousands of years. The discovery of new active principles from the plant resources draws immediate attention to herbaria where the specimens could be seen for recognisation so as to identify specimens in nature for collection, utilization and further research.

            In view of the above, one of the prerequisites of the countries rich in biodiversity is to preserve the existing herbarium specimens and the knowledge contained in them and also to enhance the collections so that basic information gets created. The collections of specimens should also be accompanied with ample and accurate field data and additional information on various aspects including the knowledge associated with the genetic resource of the region. As long as the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) is mandatory, acceptance among the signatory countries (having recognized herbaria) there is urgent need to develop linkages among the countries at inter-institutional and interdisciplinary levels: Since a herbarium is one of the major components which provides adequate information in order to conserve the  biological diversity of any country, international   agencies, well developed national organizations may help strengthening regional, infrastructure facilities, capacity building and dissemination of the knowledge.  

There are approximately 3,990 recognized herbaria in the world today, with about 10,000 associated curators and biodiversity specialists. Collectively the world's herbaria contain an estimated 350,000,000 specimens that document the earth's vegetation for the past 400 years. India and its neighbouring countries namely Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, People's Republic of China, and Sri Lanka have over 14 million herbarium specimens with elements new to science as types over 50 thousand. India stands 19^th in position among the herbaria of the world for the repository of over 3.5 million specimens representing more than 23 thousand type specimens. Interestingly, except on a common web site and in bound pages of Index Herbariorum being published by New York Botanical Garden, USA supporting/collaborating/ coordinating viewpoint of various herbaria does not appear accessible.

An insight of repository of herbaria of India and neighboring countries shows that several of the herbaria have same area of floristic exploration and representation of specimens. Even in country such as People's Republic of China over 80 herbaria have common field of contribution, 45 herbaria of India reveal common area of jurisdiction particularly that of different educational institutions. It may be perhaps due to certain objective behind the development of a herbarium. Thus it becomes important to develop linkages to avoid duplication of the subject, site and objectives for meeting the common goal, it will also save time and energy.

More herbaria should be established in the various locations of this region of the world to house local collections and the holdings in the existing ones augmented for a better assessment of the region's plant resources in order to help resource management, which is needed more than ever before in the present environmental crisis.

There are 94 herbaria has been present in India Acronyms with asterisk indicate that these herbaria are recognized by the International Association for Plant Taxonomy (IAPT), New York Botanical Garden, USA and are published in the INDEX HERBARIORUM, an index of herbaria of the world. Out of 94 herbaria in India 59 are recognized.