The University of Guelph Herbarium has pages of new and historic plant samples for people to leaf through.
Recently, residents were invited to tour the herbarium located in the Centre for Biodiversity Geonomics at the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario.
Started by the Ontario Agricultural College, the herbarium contains over 100,000 dried plant samples, including moss, lichen and ferns. The samples within the collection come from Canada and around the world. Stacks of different coloured folders hold samples from Finland, Japan, Barbados, Jamaica and other countries. Some of the samples are also historic, dating back almost 200 years.
The tour was hosted by Nature Guelph Wildflower and the group was led by herbarium curator, Carole Ann Lacroix. During the event, Lacroix spoke with residents about different plant samples, how plant samples are made and the role of the herbarium today in education.
Lacroix, who took over the role of curator in 2006, describes her role as being 'like a detective.'
"There's so much to do here, it's never ending," said Lacroix.
The term herbarium is a term used to describe a systematically arranged collection of dried plants. Around the world, there are 1,250 herbariums and 110 of those are located in Canada. Between 50,000 to 75,000 botanists have contributed to the collection here at U of G.
The collection at the university herbarium continues to grow as it receives an average of 2,000 new plant samples every year. For 2022 so far, the herbarium has received 4,000 new plant samples.
Currently, the university herbarium is working to move its collection online for more people in the community to engage with. Some of the herbarium's collection can be seen online here.
