Herbarium
Zoe Nikakis
reproduced with permission, MUSSE original article
Erin Batty working alongside the Herbarium fungal collection drawers
(Photographer: P. Cassamento)
A Herbarium is a plant museum, a collection of pressed, dried plant specimens. The specimens are used for teaching and research. Botany students use the collection like a reference library, and specimens are loaned out to other herbariums when researchers need access to specific samples.
The collection represents "the history of botany, and the history of teaching botany" at the University. It keeps student-made specimens collected throughout the University's history.
"It's in place of photos," explained Collections Manager, Nicole Middleton. "Once you get into the details of the plant, you find photos are really lacking. A photo is someone else's interpretation of a plant but when there's a specimen in front of you, it's your interpretation."
The University of Melbourne Herbarium was established in the School of Botany in January 1926, when a donation of plant specimens was given to the School by the Reverend Herman Montague Rucker Rupp, a former student of Trinity College and keen amateur botanist. Though his collection of orchids went to the National Herbarium in New South Wales, he donated the remainder of his specimens to the University.
Herbarium specimen of Bracteantha bracteata (Golden Everlasting)
(Photographer: P. Cassamento)
Thanks to other donations, some dating back to the 1850s, today's collection totals approximately 100 000 specimens and is still growing. Botanical researchers are required to lodge their specimens with one of the registered herbaria in the world as proof of their research, so the University has collections from many different botanists who have brought specimens from as far away as Antarctica, Scotland and Hawaii.
The Herbarium houses many native plant specimens, from flowering plants and ferns to an extensive collection of bryophytes (moss and liverworts) and a large number of brilliantly coloured macro-algae. The macro-algae (seaweeds) are stuck onto paper with their natural gelatines.
If specimens are looked after well, they will last indefinitely. "I've seen some that are 300 years old which were collected by William Dampier, who visited Australia before Captain Cook, and they looked fabulous," Ms Middleton explained. If specimens are treated with care, they can look as if it were cut from a plant last week, when in fact they might be hundreds of years old.
Undergraduates use the collection, but they have to be trained in handling the delicate specimens first. Many botany students learn how to make herbarium specimens as part of their studies.
The collection is arranged alphabetically by family, so the eucalypts are with the paperbarks and the bottlebrushes, because they are part of the same family.
In compliance with Australian quarantine rules, all plant samples are frozen for seven days at minus 18 degrees to kill anything living on the plants before they're pressed and mounted. It would be a disaster for the collection if insects such as silverfish got in and ate the dried plants.
The Herbarium is one of the 33 cultural collections on campus, and is also involved with History and the Arts Faculty.
