Australia's herbaria house over seven million plant, algae and fungi
specimens. Herbarium specimens
are an important resource
for research on the Australian flora and provide a permanent record of the occurrence
of a species at a particular place and time.
AVH provides access to the collecting data associated with these specimens.
Herbaria are active research collections that are used for taxonomic,
historical and ecological research (AD 234223).
Herbaria often contain separate carpological
collections to house large fruits – such as Banksia cones, pine cones and
these fruits of Flindersia australis (MEL 2013790) –
that are too bulky to be mounted on a typical herbarium sheet.
Although most plant specimens are pressed and
dried, some – such as these orchids – are preserved in alcohol in order
to retain important diagnostic characters that would be lost upon
drying.
As well as vascular plant specimens, herbaria
house collections of cryptogams, fungi and algae, such as this specimen
of the lichen Teloschistes fasciculatus (MEL 22411).
Important diagnostic features – such as the
colour and form of fungi fruit bodies – can be lost when specimens are
dried, so illustrations and photographs are often used to record these
details prior to preservation.
In addition to specimens collected within
Australia, many Australian herbaria contain important collections of
plants, algae and fungi from other countries.
