A fresh start and a familiar task

Wow, is it good to be back at school and starting work again in the herbarium. It really feels like a whole new place (thanks to all of the hard work Dr. Monfils, Emilie and Abigail put in over the summer). I’m on board and ready to make some changes to the ways in which I am used to doing herbarium tasks however, I am happy to begin my work with the familiar task of mounting specimens.

I’m picking up right where I left off, mounting specimens from Dr. Monfils’ wetland plants course that is usually taught once per year. One of the many things that the students in wetland plants learn is the process of collecting and identifying specimens. The students travel to many places around Michigan to collect. Once the specimens have been collected, they should be pressed and all of the necessary information (e.g. locality, family name, species, collector and collection number) should be included before handing them over to be mounted. This should be done ASAP before all of the information is forgotten!

One of the most interesting parts about mounting specimens is trying to get the pressed specimens to fit just perfectly on the special herbarium mounting paper. It is very amusing to find that a collector’s point of view on a properly pressed specimen is quite different than that of the one mounting the specimens. When mounting, I am hopeful that a collector will have deposited a specimen to the herbarium that has the most information in the least amount of space. It is a challenging task to fit a specimen (with as many identifying characteristics as possible), label, herbarium stamp, accession number, and envelope all on to one sheet! Here are some of the photos from the mounting process.

As I was mounting, I captured some of the steps and the equiptment:

Here is a collage of my favorites that I mounted today:

Thanks for reading!

My Best,

Adriane Shorkey

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

New working peers at the Herbarium!

Hello all,

The fall semester started some weeks ago and it has been very busy already! I am taking 14 credits this semester, doing an undergraduate research and keeping up with work at the Herbarium!


Luckily, two new women were hired to work at the Herbarium which makes it more pleasant to work in! I worked pretty much by myself all summer and it is refreshing to have people to talk to and to share the work with!

The new workers are Abigail (Abbie) and Adriane and both of them have good work ethics and are organized. They are also always willing to help me, which is great.

One week before school started, I introduced Abbie to the Herbarium and taught her how to database the cabinets we had left (take note of the numbers of specimens of each species we have). Remember, Ashli was working on that earlier in the summer? She was able to database cabinets 4 to 9, and Abbie is continuing this work (we have 14 cabinets full of specimens)! I also taught her how to annotate specimens!

Just a reminder on why this step is necessary

I need to know how many specimens of each species we have, so then I can name verify each species (see if the scientific name was changed, or if a certain genus changed families or if a family name changed) to then produce annotation labels and annotate the specimens!

Here it is a small summary of the process:

(1) Database Cabinets
(2) Name verify species for name changes

(3) Produce the right amount of annotation labels
(4) Annotate specimens or correct the names

(5) Organize cabinets according to Edward G. Voss’ Michigan Flora 2nd edition which contains 3 volumes

(6) Re-folder specimens
(7) Produce Genus and Specimens labels for the folders using a label maker
(8) DIGITIZE!!

I have posts written in each of these topics, so you can always go back and check them in more detail!

Adriane has worked at the Herbarium before for a long time! So, she already knew many details about the Herbarium. She is our mounting specialist and she is working on mounting specimens from classes taught by Anna. She also helps me with annotating specimens when our working times overlap!

Lately, I have been working on annotating specimens from Cabinet 3 (YEAA, Cabinets 1 and 2 are fully annotated and organized!!) and name verifying some other cabinets! I am leaving in December, when I graduate, and I have to finish name verifying all cabinets before that because it was a hard and very time consuming process to learn!

Overall, it has been a pleasure working in group. I feel that the 3 of us are doing a good job on communicating where we are at and what our next steps will be.

Thanks for reading!

Emilie

Digitization

Last week was mostly spent databasing our tenth and eleventh cabinets and returning newly accessioned specimens to their proper homes. On Friday, however, our humble (but worthy) Herbarium reached a new stepping stone in the digitization process. Dr. Monfils and I had a video conference with Michael Giddens, who was kind enough to give us a detailed walkthrough of how to go about barcoding, photographing, and digitizing our specimens using our new SilverImage software. It seems like it will be a very efficient and easy process once we get in the swing of things. The high resolution photos that we have taken so far are looking gorgeous!

In layman's terms, we are giving each specimen in our Herbarium a sequential barcode (much like each specimen has an accession number); we photograph each specimen and then immediately scan its barcode. This barcode will then be associated with that image within the database. The photos begin as raw images and at the end of each day, we easily edit the pictures in bulk and then we "Batch out," converting the images to browser-friendly JPegs that can then be uploaded to online databases. For now, the online database will just have the image and the barcode of each specimen. Later, the high-resolution photos will allow us to add detailed information about each specimen to its entry within the database without having to actually pull the specimen from the cabinets.

I have just finished writing up the protocol for the process, and I will spend this week preparing specimens by double-checking organization and adding barcodes to the specimens in Cabinet 1. This Thursday, I will begin imaging in earnest. I am honored to be a part of pioneering this process, and I cannot wait to get started!

Again, my thanks go out to Michael Giddens, for his awesome tech support and his patient teaching as our Herbarium enters into this modern age. For a closer look at the equipment that we will be using for this process, see Mr. Giddens' website at SilverBiology: http://www.silverbiology.com/.

Until next week,

Abigail H.

Preservation in the face of Radicans

As I delved back into the cabinets this week, I found some stunning specimens. Some impressed me because they were so well pressed, such as this Parnassia glauca, or the American grass of Parnassus (family Saxifragaceae).

Other specimens impressed me because they had maintained their coloration so beautifully despite their age. For instance, take this Polygala paucifolia, or Fringed polygala (Family Polygalaceae) pressed in 1986. Look how its purplish hue has remained intact!

My most exciting finds of the week, however, were specimens from Central Michigan University's original Herbarium. Some even had the original labels, written by hand with an ink pen!

Saxifraga pennsylvanica, or Swamp Saxifrage (Family Saxifragaceae)

This Swamp Saxifrage was collected May 28, 1927!

 

 

I was impressed with this specimen, but even more impressed when I found these two samples, pressed in 1906:

Euphorbia cyparissias, or Cypress spurge (Family Euphorbiaceae)

 

 

Euphorbia polygonifolia, or Seaside spurge (Family Euphorbiaceae)

 

I hope to continue finding fascinating pieces of history like this...and I hope I look that good when I am over 100 years old.

 

 

And, finally, I worked a lot this week within the family Anacardiaceae. This family includes more innocuous species, like Staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina), but it also contains Poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans), Poison oak (Toxicodendron diversilobum ), and Poison sumac (Toxicodendron vernix ). Thus, my hat goes off to whomever collected those fine specimens. I hope you did not suffer afterwards.

 

Toxicodendron radicans (Poison Ivy)

 





 

 Until next time,

Abigail H.

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