2,000,00th Specimen 

 AAounted by Botany Department 



6/ William C. Burger 

 Curator of Vascular Plants 



Plant mounters in the Department of Botany recently 

 mounted our two millionth vascular plant specimen. 

 As one of the world's largest museums, we have an 

 obligation to gather materials for future study. Our 

 strong holdings of material from Latin America makes 

 collecting and preserving specimens from this region 

 especially important. Tropical forests are being cut at 

 an accelerating rate as the populations escalate. Trop- 

 ical forests are poorly known and there is an urgency to 

 sample native forest species before they are replaced by 

 farms, pastures, and housing developments. Thanks to 

 expeditions by Museum staff, active collecting by Latin 

 American colleagues, and exchange of specimens from 

 other institutions, we are adding valuable new mater- 

 ials to our herbarium. 



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Vascular plants include the flowering plants, 

 ferns, conifers, and their relatives. Our collections also 

 include many nonvascular plants, such as mosses, 

 algae, fungi, and lichens. All these, together with our 

 collections of economic plants, total about 2,500,000 

 specimens. 



Specimens of vascular plants are generally pressed 

 flat and dried. The flattened specimen is then glued 

 onto a sheet of stiff high-quality herbarium paper 

 16'/2 X llVz inches in size. A label giving the scientific 

 name, collector, date, geographical origin, ecology, 

 and descriptive details is also glued onto the sheet. 

 Once the specimen is securely glued to the herbarium 

 sheet it can be handled and studied with relatively little 

 damage, despite its being dry and often very brittle. 

 The mounted specimen is filed together with other 

 specimens of the same genus and species in metal cases 

 that hold the herbarium collections. 



Dried plant specimens are used in a variety of 

 ways. Artists may use the specimens to illustrate details 

 of a particular species. Paleobotanists often compare 

 specimens of living species with fossil remains to try 

 and determine the correct placement of their fossils. 

 Conservationists often use museum specimens to deter- 

 mine the earlier range of a declining species. Ecologists 

 can use the specimens to determine altitudinal range or 

 flowering and fruiting times over the entire geographic 

 range of a species. Chemists and anatomists can re- 



Plant Preparator Birthel Atkinson mounts 

 two nnillionth plant specimen. 



June Bartletl 85193 



