On October 22, The Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia played host for a symposium entitled Darwin and Botany in a Changing World: 150 Years after The Origin of Species. I had originally tried to see if the education department would let the students attend this event as a field trip, but since the summer months funding was cut back so opportunities have as well. Luckily for me, Longwood Garden’s Curatorial Department decided to make their own field trip and I was invited!
The main purpose of the trip was, of course, to attend the Symposium. However, we had ulterior motives… we wanted to see the Herbarium! So we made a day of it. We were originally 8, but only 4 ended up being able to attend when the day arrived.
The Academy of Natural Sciences is located right on Benjamin Franklin Parkway in downtown Philadelphia. Its very inspiring to not only be in such a historically rich city, but the Academy itself has so many incredible treasures! Even though we are a young country, its fun to see artifacts and pieces from times when we were just establishing. Especially in regards to plants! :D
Once we were successfully in the building, we started out in the departments lunch room, which is also where the herbarium does their scanning of specimens. We wanted to get a good look at how they do their scanning there because Longwood Gardens it currently looking into doing the same with their now growing herbarium collection.
The scanner set up at first seemed pretty hi-tech, but looking at it closer we saw it was something we could adapt as well. Essentially, a large bed scanner is flipped upside down and mounted onto a fabricated cart (made especially for this purpose of scanning specimens.) A specimen is laid onto a foam piece and then raised up to the scanner. It’s pretty ingenious, I think.
The scanner is, of course, connected to a computer like any other scanner. We were able to look at some of the already scanned specimens to see how the Academy was using these files. Along with the herbarium sheet itself, they add on a color card for reference and a scaled ruler. They simply set them on the sheet in the best spot they can (which would be an area that covers the least amount of plant material).
After having fun with the scanner set-up, we headed up to the herbarium itself. The main herbarium is quiet large and chock full of specimens. Like any herbarium, it had a cabinet of unmounted specimens that were back logged. Every herbarium I’ve seen tends to have that though; if only there were more volunteers! The main herbarium cabinets were fun. They are on tracks so they can be moved back and forth depending on which aisles you need to access. This is a very efficient system because they can fit the most material in the space allowed. They’re also very easy to operate. Anyway can move those huge cabinets!
The specimens themselves were neat to see as well. The herbarium there is an amazing resource! We didn’t really use the herbarium as we were just visiting, but we were able to see some specific specimens that were personal favorite plants.
Next we stopped at what was my favorite part of the day, the Lewis and Clark Herbarium. The main herbarium was temperature controlled, but it wasn’t nearly as cold as it was in this small herbarium. The collection was also housed in special folders for display, whereas typical mounted specimens are with the paper they are mounted to, possibly parchment for moisture, and a main folder holding it. These specimens were given a folder with an almost book-like quality to it.
I felt lucky to be able to to see and experience real American history. Seeing the notes of Lewis on the specimens we examined gave me chills! I guess that sounds silly, but it is pretty wild to think that we still have good quality specimens from when the country wasn’t yet a country!
We were also given a library tour by the most amazing guide, Alfred (Ernie) Schuyler. Who also happens to be Curator Emeritus. His was incredibly knowledgeable about the Academy, the botany department, and particularly about the rare botanical books he showed us. I talk about the library, the tour, and the books in this blog post.
After the library tour we had a bit of lunch in the Academy cafe before heading up to the auditorium. The symposium consisted of three incredible speakers and the afternoon just flew by! If you’d like to know more about the speakers, go to the Symposium’s website.
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