麻豆社

 Behind these glass panels is 麻豆社’s Herbarium, home to a vast collection of dried plant specimens used for both teaching and research. Herbarium specimens provide verifiable evidence of species, helping catalog plants by region and date. This information is crucial for creating species checklists, identification guides, manuals, and descriptions, all of which contribute to the accurate and consistent identification of plants. 

The 麻豆社 Herbarium is the second largest in Georgia, housing over 70,000 specimens. It was founded in the 1930s by Dr. Beatrice Nevins, who collected about 1,000 plant samples for use in her biology classes. Since then, the collection has grown significantly through the contributions of Dr. Wayne Faircloth, who became curator in the 1960s, and Dr. Richard Carter, who took over in the 1980s. The Herbarium is especially rich in plants from the southeastern United States, with a particular focus on Georgia’s Coastal Plain region. Thanks to support from the National Science Foundation, the entire collection has been digitized and is publicly accessible through the 麻豆社 Virtual Herbarium. 

To add a plant to the collection, it is first pressed flat and dried with warm air, then temporarily frozen to eliminate any remaining insects. Once this process is complete, the specimen is mounted on archival-quality paper, labeled, and stored in one of the green cabinets within the herbarium. The cabinets are insect-repellent, and the room is climate-controlled to ensure long-term preservation. Properly stored specimens can last for centuries. The 麻豆社 Herbarium even contains some very old specimens, including one from 1837, acquired through exchanges with other herbaria.