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"Objects Worthy of Notice" Microscopical Anatomy of Selected Plants Collected by The Lewis & Clark Expedition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2018

Harry A. Alden*
Affiliation:
Smithsonian Center for Materials Research and Education
Roland H. Cunningham
Affiliation:
Smithsonian Center for Materials Research and Education
Kevin Ryan
Affiliation:
Media Cybernetics, Inc., Silver Spring, MD
Paul T. Jantzen
Affiliation:
Media Cybernetics, Inc., Silver Spring, MD
David R. Dobbins
Affiliation:
Department of Biological Sciences, Millersville University

Extract

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Plants that are used for taxonomic research are generally preserved by drying them out while they are being pressed flat for easy storage. This pressed plant material, is placed in a herbarium, in phylogenetic order, based on the species, genus, family and order designations.

Herbaria are essential for the study and verification of plant classification, the study of geographic distributions, and the standardizing of taxonomic nomenclature. Lately, herbarium materials have been utilized in biochemical and genetic studies. The key to these studies is the state of preservation of the plant material. The preservation of the reproductive and vegetative structures (hairs, stomata, cuticle, etc.), internal anatomy (vascular tissue size and arrangement), biochemistry and genetic material is essential to make accurate observations, to collect representative data and answer pertinent research questions.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Microscopy Society of America 2005

References

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