A Personal Herbarium

Drawing Impulses

In the last impulse "A Walk in the Forest" I encouraged you to collect and press leaves and other plant parts. You can now use these pressed parts to make collages with natural objects from the realm of plants. The practice of pressing and drying plants is an old one. The oldest surviving herbarium dates back to as early as the 16th century (1524). It’s located in Kassel, Germany. Originally, people dried plants to have decorative material in winter. That’s how the tradition of the herbarium began. Over time, people realized that they could do this with all sorts of plants and that they could systematize the herbarium and add the roots, the buds, the flower heads, and the fruits. They became scientific works. Nowadays there are herbaria worldwide, most of them in Europe and North America. Often, they can be found in botanical gardens or natural history museums. The largest herbaria are in Paris, St. Petersburg, London, St. Louis, Vienna (they were established mainly in the times of the monarchy) and in Berlin.