Figure 11: Mounted herbarium specimen with number tag and seed/fragment pouch

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 Recently the Nihon Vogue-sha, Japanese company is offering a new approach/technique to
botanical plant preservation for herbarium specimens. The "Plant Specimen Preparation Kit"
utilizes a simple and reliable vacuum pump and a unique air press to ensure that plant specimens
are beautifully preserved with their natural colors retained (Anonymous, 2016).
This method also offers an improvement in preserving plant specimens by using special
“stock” bags that create an airtight condition for long periods. These stock bags are the optimal
way to display natural looking plant specimens and are ideal to protect specimens loaned to other
institutions or individual researchers. These bags are essential for long lasting specimen
preservation (Figures 12 to 14). You watch the drying process in a video at
https://www.oshibana.com/herbarium/en/index.php/making-a-specimen/drying-the-plant . The
Plant Specimen Preparation Kit makes it easy to solve the problems that have traditionally been
part of creating conventional pressed flowers and plants.
• It’s easy to do and takes less time
• The beautiful plant colors are saved/preserved
• A special bag prevents damage so you’ll feel a great satisfaction with the beautiful results
of your efforts.

Figure 12*: Nihon Vogue-sha, Japanese company’s "Plant Specimen Preparation Kit"

Figure 13*: Peanut plant herbarium Figure 14*: Strawberry plant herbarium
specimen specimen
*The figures & information are curtsey of Nihon-Vogue-sha, Tokyo, Japan
(https://www.oshibana.com/herbarium/en/index.php)

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