Herbarium

July 20, 2020
Thiers, director of the New York Botanical Garden’s herbarium, delivers a fascinating and beautiful resource for gardeners about her field—the study of plants via dried and preserved specimens. She begins by highlighting the pioneering Luca Ghini (b.1490), an Italian physician and professor who first advanced the study of plants’ medicinal qualities from “a minor subdiscipline of medicine into an independent scientific endeavor.” Ghini is credited for creating the first herbarium—a book filled with pressed specimens of plants, glued onto the pages alongside annotations about a particular plant’s features, the circumstances behind its collection, its known medical properties, and other facts. “If handled carefully and kept protected from moisture, insects, and light,” the author notes, “a dried plant specimen could be preserved in this manner indefinitely.” Thiers tracks the discipline as it evolved, spurred by Renaissance scientific curiosity and more recently by technological advances, such as genetic sequencing tools that allow scientists to research extinct species using herbaria specimens. Today, she writes, there are some 390 million specimens held in 3,300 herbaria around the world, giving scientists a greater understanding of plant life generally, as well as a deeper understanding of how forces like climate change are affecting the environment. Green-thumbed readers will find this to be a stimulating intellectual adventure.

September 1, 2020

Thiers began her career as a one-year postdoctoral fellowship recipient at the William and Lynda Steere Herbarium at the New York Botanical Garden, ultimately becoming its director. Here the author examines the nearly six centuries that herbaria have been documenting the world's plants and fungi. She begins with European and U.S. plant-collecting expeditions, sharing information about key explorers/scientists and their travels, and the specimens they discovered and prepared, followed by later developments in herbaria in these parts of the world. Thiers chooses four additional countries to profile: Australia, Brazil, China, and South Africa, covering early exploration, founding botanists, and modern herbaria for each. She shares information about the importance of digitization and sharing of collections as well as the current uses of herbaria from DNA studies to predicting changes to biodiversity, and the importance and future of herbaria. The author concludes with a selected list of herbaria located around the world. VERDICT With lavish illustrations of places and people; portraits of key players; herbaria specimens; and beautiful, full-color artists' renderings, this carefully researched, detailed homage to herbaria will appeal to those deeply interested in plant exploration and botany.--Sue O'Brien, Downers Grove, IL

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2020
Timber Press ventures outside its customary roster of how-to gardening books and volumes devoted to notable gardens worldwide to offer this history of the herbarium, a term used both for a method of preserving dried plant specimens and for a building that houses such a collection. Along with the Wardian case, a wood-and-glass box once used to transport live plants, the herbarium has had a monumental impact on the discovery, classification, and global distribution of hundreds of thousands of plants, dating back nearly five centuries--and, in the U.S., as early as the Lewis and Clark expedition, which collected specimens at the direction of President Jefferson. As director of the seven-million-specimen herbarium at the New York Botanical Garden, Thiers is well placed to present this detailed history, ranging from Europe to the U.S., China, Brazil, Australia, and South Africa. The exceedingly effective illustrations include photographs of noted collectors and collections, and of countless herbarium specimens, along with maps. Thiers also includes a useful listing of herbaria worldwide, all making this a significant addition to the gardening collection.

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