A place for research

Around two years ago I had little comprehension of herbaria, let alone appreciation and respect for their value. I’ve grown up collecting things and have loved observing different species of plants and animals, but working in a place that is home to a diverse collection of plants never crossed my mind as I imagined myself as a scientist. My name is Derek; I am not a CMC herbarium employee like Emilie, rather, I am a user of the herbarium. My use of the herbarium as a graduate student will be the primary subject of my blog entries.

I was approached over a year ago by a professor (who teachers an introductory biology class over the summer) who asked if I would give a short presentation to his class about the herbarium. I agreed, but never wrote any reminder down. Two summer’s in a row now, while working in the herbarium, here comes his class filing in—ready to listen to my spiel. I’ve been amazed each time by how excited I have been about the herbarium and dry, dead plants in my off-the-cuff expose. Herbaria have become for me a great research tool and I love research. I have discovered that the dead plants come alive with facts and data about a species, a region of the state, country or world, a collector or a time period.  I just counted again to be sure—I have loans of herbarium specimens from 16 different herbaria! Now, when I say “I” what I actually mean is Dr. Monfils—CMC Director— has requested specimens on my behalf for my research and the lab’s biodiversity research on Schoenoplectus and Schoenoplectiella. Herbaria from all over the world will loan specimens for research to other herbaria, but these loans must take place between a dedicated curator who can be responsible for their safe keeping. Some of the specimens we have from the New York Botanical Garden and the Missouri Botanical Garden were collected from countries scattered across the globe. I need to spend more time with these specimens and I will write about that next time.

-Derek