A Comparison of Herbarium Dried, Critical Point Dried and Fresh Plant Material using High Vacuum and Variable Pressure SEM

Abstract

The Herbarium at the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh (RBGE), houses some three million dried plant specimens collected from all over the world. Many of these are precious because of historical connections with people such as Charles Darwin and others are valuable because they may be the only remaining records of extinct species. Dating from the 17th century, the Herbarium collection provides botanists and taxonomists with an invaluable reference aid to plant classification.