User:RosemaryGlos/sandbox

Small edits to Herbarium regarding post-hoc uses for herbarium specimens:

Original: "Herbaria are essential for the study of plant taxonomy, the study of geographic distributions, and the stabilizing of nomenclature. Linnaeus's herbarium now belongs to the Linnean Society in England."

My additions: Herbaria have long been essential for the study of plant taxonomy, the study of geographic distributions, and the stabilizing of nomenclature. Linnaeus's herbarium, which contains over 4,000 type specimens, now belongs to the Linnean Society in England. Modern scientists continue to develop novel, non-traditional uses for herbarium specimens that extend beyond what the original collectors could have anticipated.  Clarifying edits and format changes to Scientific collection

Lead:

A scientific collection is a collection of items that are preserved, catalogued, and managed for the purpose of scientific study.

Scientific collections dealing specifically with organisms plants, fungi, animals, insects and their remains, may also be called natural history collections or biological collections. . The latter may contain either living stocks or preserved repositories of biodiversity specimens and materials.

Scientific collections hold a tangible portion of the cumulative evidence base in such fields as biology (especially taxonomy and evolutionary biology), geology, and archaeology. They may be stored and managed by governments, educational institutions (e.g. colleges and universities), private organizations (including museums), or individuals.

Prominent uses of scientific collections include the systematic description and identification of biological species, the study and prediction of long-term historical trends (including impacts of climate change), the dating and analysis of historical objects (e.g. via wood samples and ice cores with annual rings), and the maintenance of teaching resources.

Section on "Palm Studies" in Liberty Hyde Bailey

Bailey made significant contributions to the taxonomic study of palms. His interest in the plants reportedly stemmed from his inability to answer his wife’s questions about the plants during a family trip to Jamaica in 1910. After retiring as dean of the Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences in 1913, he devoted the better part of three decades to finding, collecting, and writing about palms. He developed a detailed method of collecting palm specimens that included photographing the tree in its entirety, preserving flowers and fruits in alcohol, pressing flower clusters, and carefully folding sections of the leaves to fit herbarium sheets.

Bailey traveled extensively in search of palms and other plants. In the 1920s, he was often accompanied by his daughter and scientific collaborator, Ethel Zoe Bailey. Already in his fifties when he began studying palms, Bailey continued to collect into his 90s. He was frequently abroad on his birthday, March 15th. Thus, he could recall spending his 79th in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, his 82nd in Oaxaca, Mexico, his 88th in Trinidad, his 90th in Grenada, and his 91st at sea on a small sailboat between Sint Eustatius and Saint Kitts. Friends and colleagues at Cornell hoped to hold a 90th birthday celebration for Bailey, and they did, but only after their guest of honor returned to Ithaca in May.

When Bailey began studying palms, about 700 species had been identified. The number reached thousand by 1946, the rise due in large part to his intensive study of the family. Ill health finally forced Bailey to discontinue collecting abroad in 1949, at the age of 91. He continued to study, compare, and write about his palm specimens. His ultimate goal was to produce an authoritative guide to all palms, titled Genera Palmarum. When he died, he left behind a manuscript of the first page of the introduction. Genera Palmarum was ultimately published by Drs. Natalie Uhl and John Dransfield in 1987. A second, expanded, edition was released in 2008.