A Herbarium is a bit like a library of dried,
pressed plant specimens
which form a record  for
identifying plant species.
If you want to know what species occur in
an area, in a national park or a local reserve,
you basically collect one of each
species, bring it into a Herbarium
and match it what we know.
The Kew Herbarium started when William Hooker
first started generating a Herbarium
which was in Hunter House in 1852.
This wing was built in 1877 and it was built
to have maximum light coming in
because in in those days
there was no electricity
and gas lighting was dangerous
in close proximity
to all of the paper and specimens
in the wooden cabinets.
They wanted to work using daylight.
To describe new species to science is one
of the aims that we have as Botanists,
but since we are actually losing species
all of the time due to habitat loss,
it’s really important that we describe what 
is there now so we can try to protect it.
When we go into the field, we collect
Herbarium specimens using a plant press
which is a wooden press that we still use.
It’s exactly the same thing as would have
been used 100 or 200 years ago
to collect Herbarium specimens.
These specimens were collected in the last
10 years and they are a species from Guinea
called Kindia gangan from Mount Gangan in
the Kindia region in Guinea.
It was collected by the Kew Africa
team during an expedition there
in collaboration with the
national Herbarium in Guinea.
It represents both a new species to science
and a new genus to science.
This is a specimen collected by Charles
Darwin on his trip to the Galapagos
and its basically exactly the same way
that we still collect our specimens today.
When plant specimens are collected, some plants
have a very interesting bark or stem.
In order to preserve these characteristics
that cannot be pressed on a sheet of paper
like a Herbarium specimen,
they are preserved in boxes.
I love being a Botanist because we get to
do a lot of field work in tropical areas
which  can be quite difficult
but it’s really rewarding.
Working with partners collecting plant
species that you haven’t seen before,
having to describe them
and study them as well.
