An Air of Mystery

As the newest undergraduate addition to the Herbarium, I have many things to learn: not only the many rules involved in the process of databasing, name-checking, annotating, accessioning, and foldering specimens, but also the many exceptions to the rules. Emilie has been a wonderful teacher, and so far I have learned the basics of our assembly line of organization. I now know how not to handle the specimens, how to database in such a way that anyone could pick up and continue where I left off, and what to do with mystery specimens that have no species name, no accession number, multiple species on one mounting, or no mounting at all.I have learned the importance of everyone in the Herbarium working in the same order and with the same process.

And, I have also learned things that no one tells you, like that when you have been annotating the same species for three hours, your vision tends to begin to split in two. Now I understand why shorter shifts are important. Forgetting to set aside a non-accessioned species, or forgetting to annotate a species whose scientific name and phylogeny has altered sometimes two or three times since its collection, will only lead to confusion and headaches later.

Thus far, despite the occasional split vision, working here at the Herbarium has been a very rewarding experience. At the end of each shift, I feel accomplished at the progress that I have made, even if that just means weeding out non-accessioned or unidentified specimens, or giving multiple species within the same folder a new home. I take satisfaction in knowing that everything that I do will make it all the more easier for the next person at the next step in this massive project. And, it feels good to know that when this is all finished, the whole scientific community, not just Brooks hall, will benefit from what we do here, and from what our predecessors started.

That is another thing that I love about the Herbarium. It has an air of quiet, peaceful mystery. I am fascinated by the history involved. Having grown up in the era of cold, clinical internet text, it is novel to directly handle specimens that have such history to them. Some of the specimens were collected over fifty years ago. I have seen the handwritten annotations of E.G. Voss, the author of the textbook that we are using as a guide to our phylogenic organization of the Herbarium. I feel a sort of excitement working with them, the special brand of feeling I usually only get when I hold the 100-year-old books that my great grandfather collected, or when I buy a used book that has a handwritten message to a loved, previous owner inside.

Furthermore, seeing multiple annotations on each specimen makes me realize how far we in the scientific community have come, and how much the field of botany has changed and will continue to change. I have to wonder if twenty years from now,a new set of students and professors will be shaking their heads at our out-of-date organization and our incorrect family names. Somehow, however, I doubt that Dr. Monfils will let that happen.

Until next week!

Abigail

Keep Calm and Organize the Herbarium

It's been very eventful couple of weeks around here! Since the Botany 2012 conference our main goals are: organize, organize and organize!

Here at the CMC Herbarium we have a total of 20 cabinets that are reserved for our collection and 12 that are reserved for research. However, we had many research specimens that were in our collection cabinets and vice-versa. So, this week we worked on putting the research specimens and in the research cabinets and we did the same for the collection specimens.

Note that after a research is completed, the specimens will be returned to the collection and the loan specimens will be returned to their respective Herbaria.

However, before filling back the collection specimens we have to figure out in which cabinet they have to go in. So, we temporaly store them into a "Need to Filed" cabinet in which each cubbie represents a collection cabinet.

To be filled cabinet

Cubbie reserved for specimens that belong in Cabinet 11

This way we can separate all the specimens that need to be filled first and then we work on filling them into the main collection by individual cabinet!

Ashli and I are also working on accessioning many specimens there were left unaccessioned. Accessioning means assigning a number to each specimen of an herbarium. This provides a permanent reference for each specimen of the collection. Often times when a specimen is used on a research, the accession number has to be cited in the publication. Therefore, it is crucial that all herbarium specimens have a accession number and that there are never 2 specimens with the same number.

First we stamp the specimen (preferentially on the upper right corner of the sheet) with our CMC stamper, and then we stamp the number with a automatic numbering stamper.

CMC Herbarium Stamper (left) & Automatic Numbering Stamper (right)

After we are done accessioning for the day, we enter the first and last accessioning numbers on acession book, so we keep track of the numbers used and how many specimens were accessioned in a day.

Acession Book

Ashli has been working extensively on acessioning, while I figure out plant families for specimens that lack that information on their labels so she can accession them later!

Ashli working on accessioning specimens!

Myself helping out Ashli!

There is a lot to do in here and so in order not to get overhelmed, I have an advice for everyone that is currently working on planning on working in here :)

Thanks for reading!

Emilie