Why Press Plants for Science?

Every day, we experience plants— enjoying them for their smells and tastes and relying on them for our food, clothing, housing and medicines. Plants, and their flowers and fruits, are an integral part of our lives and are crucial for our survival. We are intimately familiar with the plants we find in our own backyards and neighbourhoods, even if we don’t know their official scientific names. So why press plants for science? Because plant biodiversity research needs you! Botanists cannot properly document plant biodiversity on their own, and it takes motivated and curious people like you to help build comprehensive research collections. Over the past 50 years, plant collections have seen a steady decline in donations, but in just the last five years we have started to see a revival in people’s curiosity to create specimens of the natural world. We all rely on plants, and by collecting and donating plant specimens, we can help scientists to better understand how to protect the world’s plant biodiversity.

Collectors and Their Collections

Humans have always been collecting and using plants, yet the idea of collecting a plant, pressing it and attaching it to a piece of paper with its name and details of habitat and location has been around for only about 500 years. It was a way of recording a species’ existence along with its variation and location to share with others, as it was not always easy to capture such fine plant details with words or illustrations—and of course a way to capture one’s discoveries. Since then, collectors have been documenting plants from all over the world. The passion of plant collectors taking the time to observe nature, collect specimens and donate the diversity they have experienced has led to a wealth of information about the Earth and our intertwined history. We continue to catalogue plant life, which is no small task, since plant distributions and ecosystems change—much to do with human interactions. These early plant collections tell stories of the past, but the present and future story of life on Earth will be built by you.

This book is a guide for anyone who is curious about plants and has the desire to preserve them and note their place on Earth. I decided early on to leave algae, lichens, fungi and bryophytes to be covered in their own books, as they are just different enough that they deserve their own spotlight. I will get you on your way to understanding how to collect plants and why, and how to make useful and beautiful specimens.

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Pressed Plants: Making a Herbarium is on sale now, from Royal BC Museum Books. Purchase a copy from your local bookstore, the Royal Museum Shop or at rbcm.ca/books