From birth we are surrounded by plants. At first, we are surprised and delighted with it. Then everything becomes familiar. Despite this, they continue to surprise us.
What is a herbarium
Herbarium is a collection of amazing plants, herbs. This word comes from the Latin word Herba - plant or grass. Also called a herbarium is the organization where these same herbs and plants are contained.
These plants are collected specifically, and then dried.
Plants usually gather in summer and autumn, when there are a lot of different types of vegetation.
Little explorers
Young children from preschool age are explained what a herbarium is. Carers specially take them to the park, square, where you can collect beautiful leaves of different trees and shrubs.
It is not surprising that children like to collect herbarium with their own hands. Indeed, acquaintance with nature leaves in the soul of any child only positive emotions. They collect not only leaves, but also beautiful multi-colored flowers.
Having understood what a herbarium is, children will learn what plants surround them, how they look and smell. They will know what size, color and smell are.
The study of plants is best started with the collection of more or less known to the child: plantain, chamomile, dandelion, rowan leaves and bunches, clover, oak leaves, maple and so on.
Carers should explain to young youngsters that it is advisable not to touch single plants: perhaps this is a rare species, and if it is picked, it can be damaged.
Further, the educators acquaint them with how to make a herbarium and dry it correctly, so that the plants for a long time please the eye, do not lose their color and do not crumble.
Herbarium and schoolchildren are gathering. In any student in the book you can find a piece of mountain ash, or maple, or oak, and so on. On a winter day, they remind them of warm summer and golden autumn, giving warmth and pleasing to the eye.
History of creation
According to historical data, the first plant collections began to be created during the Renaissance. In Russia, this time was a bit late - in the eighteenth century.
At present, there are approximately five hundred large herbarium institutions in the world. They collected and dried over three hundred thousand species of herbs and plants.
The most numerous herbaria are in the British Botanical Garden. It is located in the city of Kew. There are more than six million leaves, between which the plants are dried. In a large Russian botanical institute, which is located in the city of St. Petersburg, there are more than five million sheets.
The Imperial Botanical Garden (city of St. Petersburg) has herbariums from all over the world, but most of them have Russian plants. In total, the herbarium contains about one hundred thousand species of plants, in Russian - twenty thousand species collected from all over Russia. Each year, collections are replenished with new species.
The great Swedish scientist Karl Linney from a young age was fond of flora and fauna. He compiled a large collection of plants, which is currently in the museum in London. Companions of Linnaeus sold his collection to England while the king of Sweden was absent. The king tried to return the valuable herbarium, but could not: the English ships sailed away.
The Bunge collection (Russian herbarium) was also sold to France.
Since ancient times, people have distinguished between the beneficial and harmful properties of plants, but no one has been collecting their collections. The first herbarologist was Luca Gini, a Leaning and Leaning expert on plants.
At the same time, the herbarium began to collect Caspar Ratzenberg. His collection is kept in the Royal Museum in Kassel and is considered the most ancient. It contains 746 species of various plants.
Core qualities
The herbarium of plants must necessarily have the following qualities:
- The plant must be dried in a straight plane, between the leaves, under a certain press. It must not be allowed to dry in the open air, otherwise the edges and veins of leaves and herbs will rise, forming irregularities, and come together in one lump, which will lead to rapid shedding of the plant.
- Under the plant must necessarily be its name - both scientific and folk. This is necessary in order to know which plant is dried under a particular leaf.
- Mandatory is an indication of the time of collection or flowering of a plant. This is necessary in order to know exactly when the collection was made.
- Indication of the location and location of the collection is also important. That is, it is necessary to indicate the name of the area, and also indicate whether it is a meadow, or a forest, a swamp, or rocks, steppe or plain, and so on.
- An indication of the prevalence of the plant is necessary in order to know whether it is rare or growing everywhere, grows alone or as a group.
- The soil is determined on which the analyzed plant grows: loamy, clayey, chernozem, red earth, sand or another.
All these data are needed in order to know what kind of plant it is, how to dry it and store it in the future.
Drying
Drying plants, herbs, leaves, flowers is necessary at a certain temperature, between the leaves, using pressing. As a press, you can use a stack of books or some tablets. On one sheet, you can attach several plants. At the same time, they should be attached to the sheet with threads or paper strips.
Proper drying of plants allows them to be stored for a long time. But they must be protected from damage by various insects: bugs, butterflies and so on, as well as from rodents. If these pests are found, they must be discarded. Be sure to treat the plants with carbon disulfide fumes, mercuric chloride solution or ordinary naphthalene.
Harvesting herbarium is preferably done in dry weather, otherwise the leaves and flowers will be more difficult to dry and store. It is necessary to collect fallen, half-dried plants, and not to take from a tree.
It usually takes 10-14 days to dry the plants. To make this process faster, you can change the leaves where the herbs are dried to dry more often.
Using an iron and paper, the herbarium can also be dried. But you must take into account the temperature of ironing: it should be minimal. But, unfortunately, with this method of drying, the color of the material may change.
Some herbarium lovers also use a microwave. But this method can lead to uneven leaves.
For drying, you can use ordinary glycerin: plants are lowered into a container with glycerin and hot water. They should be there for several days. Then they are taken out and put to dry. With this method, they dry faster, but acquire a brown color.
Proper drying allows the plant to be even and not lean down.
Interesting crafts from dried plants and flowers
To get a beautiful and unusual floral arrangement, you can use not only standard leaves and flowers, but also large buds, ears, petals of various shapes, seeds and nucleoli, pistils and so on. The use of the same shape and color of leaves and flowers allows you to create an amazing symmetrical composition.
To strengthen flowers and leaves, PVA glue mixed with water is used.
Using dried compositions, you can create unusual decorative panels, unique paintings. From them you can make bookmarks for books, photo albums.
For example, to make a panel, you need to prepare the basis: canvas, fabric and more. On it from dried flowers a picture is formed, which the fantasy will tell. They are glued to the base. If desired, you can paint in any color or leave natural. After the end of the creative process, the panel is inserted into the frame.
To make bookmarks, flowers, spikelets and so on are glued to cardboard stripes for bookmarks. On top of the composition, you can stick a transparent file, the edges are fixed.
Thanks to various flower arrangements, unique things are obtained that will decorate any interior of a house or apartment.
From dried flowers, herbs, leaves, you can make original things that no one has. They can be hung on the wall, put on a shelf, or you can give them to relatives and friends. Undoubtedly, many will like to receive a handmade postcard as a gift. Such a gift will be remembered for a lifetime and will be appreciated.
Album design for herbarium
An album at home can be designed in different ways. For example, you need to take an album, place collection items on its sheets. You can glue with strips of paper or stitch with threads. Some products can be fixed together with the root, and next to the bag are seeds and nucleoli of the plant. The names and time of collection are written below. Get a wonderful herbarium. Photos of plants can be fixed nearby. Parchment paper is placed over the composition . All sheets are collected in a folder or stapled together at the edges.
Games with children using herbariums
It is very important for a child to do something with his own hands. And parents should help him in this. For example, collecting plants and herbs can be a strong hobby and pride for the baby.
With the help of plant collections you can create different games for young children. The child is given the task to find out what kind of leaf, flower, seed it is and where it grows. It can be not only herbs, but also leaves of currant, cucumber, tomato, cherry, carrot, beetroot and so on. That is, what surrounds the baby in the garden and in the garden.
Dividing the collection by type, you can give the task: which plants are fruit, which are vegetable, which are indoor, which are spicy, which are weeds, and which usually grow in the forest.
Also can be divided by color, size, smoothness.
When traveling to another area, you need to bring leaves, flowers and seeds of exotic plants. They will allow the child to find out which herbs grow in a particular place.
Children really like to draw using leaflets. For example, paint is applied to the front of the sheet, this side is pressed against a sheet of paper. On it remains a stamp of a leaflet with edges and with all veins. The child learns how the sheet looks, learns to draw with the help of pencils and paints.
In this way, you can draw not only individual leaves, but even whole pictures. Using leaves of different colors, you can get interesting storylines. You can also put leaves on a sheet of paper, spray paint on top. Then remove the leaves. The resulting speckled silhouettes.
Lotto is a very interesting game for children. Cards for it can be made using dried and laminated leaves.
Herbarium in needlework
Some needlewomen use a herbarium to create unusual jewelry. Photos of these things are surprising and fascinating. For example, beautiful flowers are folded into silicone molds that are filled with epoxy. Everything must be done carefully so that there is no air left. After a certain time, the resin hardens. The resulting workpiece can be used to create unusual earrings, rings, necklaces, and so on.
Some artists use a herbarium to create their drawings. It turns out various animals, birds and more.
You can also use dried flowers in a form of needlework such as decoupage.
How to make a herbarium
The question is simple, but requires a thorough study of the plant world. At school, teachers teach children how to make a herbarium. For this, students must figure out what a particular plant is for. All familiar grasses, flowers, shrubs and trees can be divided by theme. For instance:
- weeds
- flowers growing on a flower bed;
- inedible berry bushes, medicinal plants and many others.
In addition to general characteristics, herbaria can be divided into food, technical and others. For example, in the herbarium of medicinal plants you can include St. John's wort, oregano, coltsfoot, yarrow, celandine and others.
the main goal
Having become acquainted with what a herbarium is, many will understand what the main goal of this action is to obtain reliable information about all the plants that once were and have disappeared, and about those that are now. People should know that plants are our friends and they must be protected.
Proper design of the herbarium, its skillful storage will allow humanity to take care of the world around it.