Plant Collecting

BIOL/FISH/WILD 4020 Plant Collections

Why make a collection?

A good plant collection represents information that was captured at one point in time and made available for all time. People still study specimens collected in the 1600s. This means that your specimens might still be being studied in 2400 AD, if they are well made, for only well made collections will be kept for use by the Herbarium.

The other benefit to making a collection, and identifying the plants in it, is that doing so will teach you more about plant diversity and the characteristics of different plants. You will also learn the advantage of making good specimens and field notes.

Field notes. Write your field notes BEFORE starting to collect

Describe the location. Include the State, Parish/County, nearest city, and if applicable, the name of the area you are in (i.e. BREC’s Bluebonnet Swamp Nature Preserve). Use the odometer on your car to determine mileage locality in relation to the intersection of the collection road/area with a main highway or interstate. When possible, include latitude and longitude measurements.

• Write the date and who is with you (if anyone). Even if you are collecting with other students from the class, each of you must have your own field notes and specimens.

Describe the ecological characteristics of the area.

Start collecting. Assign consecutive numbers to each plant that you collect and use those numbers in your field notebook. Add notes about an individual plant in your field notebook: these notes should include things like flower color, height of the plant (if entire plant is not included in collection), fruit shape, and other characteristics that may not be evident after the plant is collected, pressed and dried. If you are not pressing the specimens immediately, tag each one with its unique number before you put it in your collecting bag.

You will be required to submit a copy of your field notes with your collection. DO NOT RECOPY YOUR FIELD NOTES. Field notes are notes taken in the field. Recopied field notes will earn you zero points.

Good collecting and pressing

• COLLECT ONLY PLANTS WITH REPRODUCTIVE STRUCTURES PRESENT (i.e. flowers, fruits, spores, cones, seeds, etc.). Collect as much of the plant as possible. For herbaceous plants this includes the underground parts.

• Tag your plants when you collect them if you are not pressing them immediately.

• Press your plants while they are fresh.

• Clean off the mud — dirty plants result in lost points.

• Lay the plant in the newsprint as you want it to look when dried. Take advantage of the space available, remembering that there will be a label attached in one corner.

• Make sure that both the top and the bottom surface of leaves are visible.

• If possible, expose the inner portions of a flower.

• Put a crisp bend in the stem or branch if it is too long to fit in the paper. If you clip off portions of the branch, leave a stub so that people can see that you have done so.

• If the plants are small, the specimen should contain several individuals from the same population (assuming the population is large enough to support collecting several).

• Do not leave plant parts hanging out of the press. They will not get pressed and will probably be broken off.

• There are special techniques for pressing aquatic plants: put the plant in a pan of water and float it onto herbarium mounting paper. Place wax paper or plastic between the plant and the newsprint or the plant will stick to the newsprint. This technique will be demonstrated in class.

• Place your plant press in the dryer in LSB room 118 as soon as possible after returning from collecting (do not wait more than three days after collecting to place your press in the dryer). If necessary, put your press in a refrigerator or on top of a running clothes dryer if you can’t get to the plant dryer within one day of collecting.

Collecting ethics

Have a reason for killing or damaging the plant. The validity of a reason varies with the species and the location.
Have permission to collect in the area concerned.
Determine whether there are enough plants to justify your action. In general, follow the 1 in 20 rule. **If there is only 1 individual of an herbaceous plant, DO NOT collect it!!**

Preparing the label.

Your labels must include ALL of the information found in the label below unless you have gotten explicit permission from Susan to leave it off. This information must also appear in the same format found below. Email Susan at spell@lsu.edu if you would like an electronic copy of this sample to use as a template for your own labels.

Plants of LOUISIANA

Louisiana State University Herbarium

ASTERACEAE

Carphephorus pseudoliatris Cass.

Bristleleaf Chaffhead

OBL

St. Tammany Parish.: Collected along power cut located one mile North of the LA 435 entrance to the Nature Conservancy’s Abita Creek Flatwoods Preserve. Preserve is located on LA 435 10 miles Northeast of I-12. 30⁰ 31. 063’ N, 89⁰ 58.036’ W. Petals purple.

Susan Pell 503 10 September 2000

Two warnings:

* Proof read the labels, particularly the locality and the species and family names. I deduct points for spelling errors on labels.

* Be sure you put the right plants and labels together. A perfect label with the wrong plant means zero points for the specimen.

BIOL/FISH/WILD 4020 Plant Collections Continued

Collection grading.

Making a good collection is time consuming. That is why it is graded as carefully as it is. Each specimen and its label will be examined. You are required to turn in 40 specimens if you are an undergraduate and 50 if you are a graduate student. You may submit up to 5 extra specimens that will be worth two bonus points each. If you submit more than 5 extra, your score will be based on the first 45/55 specimens that I grade.

You may only turn-in ONE specimen of each species: if you turn-in more than one specimen of the same species, the second specimen will be worth zero points. Five specimens must be mounted on herbarium paper: this will be done during lab at the end of the semester (materials will be provided). Mounted specimens are worth a maximum of 8 points each. The maximum number of points per non-mounted specimen is 5. You start with 5, but lose points as indicated by the following guidelines.

Identification: If you have the correct genus but the incorrect specific epithet, you will loose one to two points (depending on how close your ID is to the true ID), if both are wrong, you will loose 4 points.

Fertile Specimen: If your specimen is sterile, you will earn zero points for it unless I, the TA, gave you prior permission to turn it in as is.

Quality of Specimen: Your specimen should be complete, well pressed and completely dry. Herbaceous plants should show enough of the base and underground parts to indicate longevity (annual or perennial), root type, etc. There should be no mold or excessive dirt on the specimen. The deductions for specimen quality range from 0.5 to 5 points depending on the severity of the ugliness. If your specimen is still wet when you turn it in, you will earn zero points for that plant. Additionally, if you turn-in plants that were collected for another class, at a different time than this semester, or by someone else, you will earn zero points for those plants.

Spelling: Errors that have not been corrected (you can do so with a pen or pencil if necessary) will result in a loss of 0.25 to 2 points depending on the type and number of errors that occur.

NOTE: these errors add up if you have the same error on many labels.

Labels: It is important that you follow the basic label format that has been provided to you. If you fail to do so, you will loose 10 to 20 points from your collection. In addition, if you fail to include information such as authority, parish/county, date, wetland indicator status, etc, you will loose 0.5 points per error for each specimen on which this happens.

Field Notebook: Your field notebook is worth 20 points. I will look at completeness of entries and check to see that the notebook has not been recopied.