Botany
Botany is the science and study of plants. Traditionally, all living things were assigned to either the plant or animal kingdoms. Plants get their energy from the sun and use carbon dioxide from the air together with water and nutrients from the soil to make new growth. Animals derive their energy from existing living or dead organic sources, such as other plants and animals. In modern times we have many more divisions of living organisms, relating to their position on the evolutionary tree. Fungi and algae are no longer considered to be plants and belong in separate kingdoms
RAMM has many thousands of plant specimens in its collections, collectively called herbaria. We still curate the fungi and algae in the botany section. Divisions in which we have significant collections include fungi, seaweeds, green algae, stoneworts, clubmosses, horsetails, ferns, conifers and flowering plants.
Most of the specimens are what we call flowering or seed plants. These are the majority of large green plants you are likely to see in the countryside or in gardens. With few exceptions plants are kept as pressed and dried specimens mounted on sheets of stiff paper along with the information relating to their identity and collection. Because they are preserved this way they don't look much like the living plant. But details of their shape and form are preserved and can still be used to identify them after hundreds of years. Unlike mounted birds and mammals they are not generally presented for display.
Plant Taxonomy:
Within the RAMM Herbarium the plants are arranged in a system of classification that is recognised around the world. This is called Linnaeus' binomial system, named for the Swedish botanist Carl von Linne who first proposed the scheme.
For example the heath lobelia is the English name for the plant identified as Lobelia urens Linnaeus.
urens is the SPECIES, or specific name. It may be followed by the name of the authority who originally coined the name, in this instance Linnaeus, the alternate Latinised version of Carl von Linne himself.
Lobelia is the generic name. A GENUS is a group of essentially similar and related plants. The genus Lobelia is grouped with other genera within the CAMPANULACEAE, a FAMILY. Families are contained within larger groups, ORDERS and the orders within CLASSES and DIVISIONS. The Linnaean binomial system is also applied to the animal kingdom.
