Technical drawing of Zanthoxylum asiaticum (L.)
Technical drawings of plants are usually made when describing new species. Herbarised or living plants serve as a basis. This plant species was already described by Carl von Linné and moved to another genus by the curator of the Göttingen herbarium together with two colleagues.
Appelhans, Groppo & J.Wen
Herbarium record of the cactus Stetsonia coryne (Salm-Dyck)
As with tree ferns, only a small part of this cactus species, which can grow up to 8m high, can be collected and pressed. In this case, transverse and longitudinal sections were made. Ideally, flowers and fruits still belong to a herbarium sheet, so that all morphological features of the species are preserved.
Britton & Rose from Bolivia
Herbarium record of the tree fern Cyathea squamipes
Tree ferns of the genus Cyathea occur in tropical regions of all continents with about 500 species. They usually have a shoot axis several metres long and the fern fronds are also often several metres long. Leaf fragments of the Göttingen herbarium specimens are mostly used for DNA extractions and sequencing as well as subsequent phylogenetic analyses ("family tree calculations").
H. Karst from Ecuador
Specimens from the moss and lichen herbarium
Some plants are so small that it would be a waste of space to stick them on an A3 sheet. Mosses and lichens are usually kept compressed in small envelopes called capsules. Bulky or fragile objects such as crustose lichens on stones or shrub lichens are stored in boxes.
In total, the Göttingen herbarium houses more than 60,000 mosses and lichens, making it one of the largest collections of its kind in Germany.
University Herbarium
The herbarium of Göttingen University is one of the largest and most important institutions of its kind in Germany. It houses around 800,000 dried and archived plants from all parts of the world. Among these are more than 12,000 type specimens, i.e. collection objects on the basis of which the first scientific description of a species was made. In addition to classical botanical studies such as revisions, monographs and contributions to floras, the plant specimens of the Göttingen herbarium are used today primarily for molecular studies that pursue evolutionary and biogeographical questions.
