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Natural History Museum
The Seed Plant Herbarium at the Natural History Museum
By Kathy Gray
If you think of the Natural History Museum, what comes to mind? Perhaps the magnificent building itself, opened to the public in 1881 and now home to some 80 million specimens across the natural sciences. Or the blue whale skeleton suspended above the entrance hall.
Well, how about the Seed Plant Herbarium, which I had the good fortune to visit?
I went hoping to see the specimens brought back by Joseph Banks, who sailed with Captain Cook between 1768 and 1771, and I was treated to a personal tour of this remarkable facility, known as the General Herbarium.
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Natural History Museum main entrance.
25.2-metre blue whale skeleton "Hope" hanging in the Hintze Hall.
Portrait of Joseph Banks by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1773
Since 2009, more than two million specimens have been housed in the cocoon-shaped building known as Darwin Centre 2. Modern technology keeps them at 17Β°C and between 40 and 50 per cent relative humidity, and the building boasts an integrated pest management system. The specimens come from across the globe β Asia, Australia, Antarctica, Central America, the West Indies, Russia, Turkey and Macaronesia (the Canaries, Azores and Madeira) β and are organised into 26 geographic regions, with Europe designated region 1 and Antarctica region 26. A further three quarters of a million specimens represent the flora of Britain and Ireland, and are held separately in the British and Irish Herbarium.
Those are a few statistics and a brief description of the technology, but they convey nothing of how exciting it was β and, if I am honest, how moving β to see specimens that Joseph Banks and his companions, including Daniel Solander, collected over 250 years ago. They faced many perils during the circumnavigation, and the collection was very nearly lost altogether when the ship was holed on the Great Barrier Reef.
General Herbarium storage system
Photo: Tony Gray
General Herbarium storage system
Photo: Tony Gray
Herbarium plant presses.
Photo: Tony Gray
I saw sheets of Leptospermum scoparium (mΔnuka, or tea tree), collected by Banks and Solander in 1769β70. Cook's crew gathered this same plant to brew beer. Banksia ericifolia (heath banksia) was there too, the genus named, of course, after Banks himself. And from New Zealand, Melicytus ramiflorus (mΔhoe, or whiteywood) β a holotype specimen, the sheet on which the plant's published description and scientific name are anchored. There are several other categories of type, each with a precise role in fixing how a plant is named. For all the technology surrounding them, the specimens are still kept in plain brown folders, and are prepared much as they were two and a half centuries ago.
The herbarium serves many purposes and is a unique global resource. It helps with the identification of plants, of course, and conserves dried specimens for future study. DNA extracted from them can resolve taxonomic questions β and, remarkably, DNA can still be recovered from pressed plants as old as those Banks collected. Artists come here too, drawing inspiration for textile designs and exhibitions.
The herbarium is not all about history, though. New specimens continue to arrive, and I saw how they are pressed in enormous presses and stored for future reference. There was far more to see and learn than a single visit allowed, but what struck me most was the sheer work and dedication that goes into preserving our plant heritage β something that matters to all of us. Long may it continue.
Leptospermum scoparium specimen.Β
See detail below. Β Β Photo: Tony Gray
Leptospermum scoparium specimen record. Β Photo: Tony Gray
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