Plant Collecting and Making Herbarium Specimens
Saturday, May 2
9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
At the Big Chico Creek Ecological Reserve
Workshop Canceled
Are you interested in how to collect plants, press them, and make herbarium specimens? Plant collections can be used to document what plants are found in an area, help provide information on plant distribution and examples of diversity. It is a very enjoyable pastime, but is also an essential tool used by various botanists and researchers. When such specimens are required as part of professional and/or scientific documentation for surveys or research they are called “vouchers”.
Learn about where to go to collect, how to obtain collection permits, proper collection practices and methods, including what types of data are needed while collecting in order to make specimen labels. Learn how to press, dry, and prepare a herbarium specimen, including mounting and label making techniques. You could create and submit actual herbarium specimens!
Linnea Hanson is a retired botanist from the Plumas National Forest, who is now on the board of the Friends of the Chico State Herbarium and President of Northern California Botanists. She taught General Botany and Horticultural Plant Identification at Shasta College.
Emily Doe has served as Curatorial Assistant for the Chico State Herbarium, taught Ornamental Plant Identification at Butte College, and has worked as a field botanist of the Forest Service on the Plumas and Mendocino National Forests. She is currently a Biologist working on vegetation mapping for the Chico State Enterprises-Geographical Information Center.
This workshop will meet on Saturday May 2nd, 2020, from 9:00 to 4:00 at the Big Chico Creek Ecological Reserve, off of Hwy 32 about 11 miles east of Chico. We will meet at the Park & Ride on Hwy 32 in the lot nearest to Hwy 99, and plan to leave at 8:30 am. If you know where the preserve is feel free to just meet us there. You may bring a hand lens and any plant identification books you may want to use on the field trip. If you have a press, bring it too! Inexpensive hand lenses and Selected Plants of Northern California and Adjacent Nevada books will available for purchase at the workshop. A lunch break will be taken at noon, bring a lunch and water. The registration is $75 personal, $65 for Friends of the Herbarium members, and $45 for students. Please register in advance; class size limited to 20 people. For more information about this workshop please email Linnea Hanson at linneachanson@gmail.com or Emily Doe at edoe@csuchico.edu. For information about registration or to register using a credit card please contact the CSU Chico Biology Office at 530-898-5356 or sscholten@csuchico.edu