Of course there are academics who use herbaria
for studying, but you can also use them as a little diary. Whenever you are in
a great place, in a beautiful moment, or you have a feeling you never want to
forget. You can pick a flower or other beautiful plant specimen and paste it
into your herbarium. That way you can easily remember the moment on a beautiful
way. Besides that you can learn something about plants, to feed our inner botanist.
So, you
picked a flower. What now?
For
plants to fit in your herbarium they need to be pressed. You can use a plant
press, but that is definitely not necessary.
I generally use some heavy books to put on top of the book I put the
flower in. Make sure you put the plant specimen in absorbing paper (so it can
absorb all the water from the plant) before you put it in a book. An old
newspaper will work just fine!
After a
couple of days you can take the flower out and paste it into your little
herbarium. Next to the flower you can write when and where you found it.
