Herbarium course

In plant biology, a herbarium is a collection of well-preserved, dry plants that is stored and systematically organized in order to provide a historical record of the existing plants in a given area and in a given time frame.  

An herbarium is not only important for having a record of the plant biology in a given area, but it is also a beautiful way to keep this record and be able to study local biodiversity without having to get new samples each time.

This course will be divided in three main parts: (1) an introduction, describing what is an herbarium, and its relevance, (2) sampling: establishing the geographical area for sampling, collection techniques, recording of relevant information for the specimen, (3) creating the herbarium: pressing, drying and mounting of plant specimens, (4) classification, storing and other uses of the herbarium.