1. Daily Follow-up to Mounting

• Do a final check on the specimen conditions and have specimens repaired that are not mounted well. Make sure each specimen is secure and has a packet. Provide feedback to the mounters.
• Pencil the family number on the upper right of each sheet’s label or just above the label.
• Watch for obviously misidentified specimens.
• Add the accession seal to each sheet. Accession seals identify specimens so they can be loaned and returned to the correct institution. Make sure the ink used for the accession seal is archival.

2. Organizing the Specimen Set for Accessioning

• Keep sets of specimens together and accumulate them until the complete set is ready to be accessioned.
• Sort the specimens according to the filing arrangement in the collection or according to the most efficient method to enter in the database.
• Check for multiple sheets of the same collection number. If the material is redundant, determine which to cull for exchange, else organize the sheets in a logical order and mark them sequentially. E.g., sheet 1 of 2, sheet 2 of 2.

3. Accessioning

• Add a sequential accession number to each specimen starting at the beginning of the sorted set. The accession number may be added via a numbering machine, barcode label, in some cases, might be preprinted on the herbarium paper.
• About barcodes…
  BarCode Technology for Herbarium and Museum Biological Collections
  Globally Unique Identifiers (GUID) (in biological collections)
  Registry of Biological Repositories

4. Computerization and Imaging

• FLAS geographic standards for entering locality data – pdf file or excel file

5. Collection Organization

• Collection Organization
  1. Family delineation: Engler and Prantl, Cronquist, Thorne, Bentham and Hooker, or modern (APG).
  2. Family arrangement: alphabetical, phylogenetic, clades
  3. References:
     1. University of Florida Herbarium modified Dalle Torre and Harms family numbering system
     2. Index Nominum Genericorum
     3. International Plant Name Index
     4. Weber, William A. 1982. Mnemonic three-letter acronyms for the families of vascular plants : a device for more effective herbarium curation. Taxon 31(1): 74-88. Call No.: QK 11 .W42 1982
     5. Brasher, Jeffrey Wayne and Neil Snow. 2004. Further updates to Weber’s three-letter family acronym system. Taxon (online version for 53(1), said to no longer be available, formerly loaded at http://www.botanik.univie.ac.at/iapt/s_taxon.php). [note: The UF Herbarium copy is printed from a PDF. See the current electronic version for the most recent version which includes the updates.]
     6. Snow, Neil. 2009. Twenty-eight new three-letter family acronyms for vascular plants (with comprehensive listings on-line). Journal of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas 3(1): 273-277. Call No.: QK 11 .W42 add. 3 2009
     7. Snow, Neil. 2009. Additional family acronyms for vascular plants based on APG III. Journal of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas 3(2): 993.
     8. Kiger, Robert W. and James L. Reveal. 2001 -. Comprehensive scheme for standardizing abbreviation of usable plant-family names and type-based suprafamilial names. [note: A scheme of four-character abbreviations for all properly usable plant-family names known to have been published to date, and of two-character rank suffixes for coordinated abbreviation of type-based names at standard suprafamilial ranks.]
     9. Haston, Elspeth, James E. Richardson, Peter F. Stevens, Mark W. Chase and David J. Harris. 2009. The Linear Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (LAPG) III: a linear sequence of the families in APG III. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 161(2): 128-131. Call No.: QZ 1 .A531 pt. 3 2009
     10. Haston, Elspeth, James E. Richardson, Peter F. Stevens, Mark W. Chase and David J. Harris. 2007. A linear sequence of Angiosperm Phylogeny Group II families. Taxon 56(1): 7-12. Call No.: QZ 1 .A531 pt. 1 2007

6. Filing the Specimens into the Collection

• Common filing problems
  • No folder for genus / species – have folder made, make temporary folder.
    Could it be filed under an alternate name? Problem groups: Eupatorium, Fabaceae, Aster…
  • Specimen doesn’t look like the species – send back to check id.
  • Folders are too big – split to temporary folders and have folders made (collection upkeep).
  • Specimens in folder are in poor shape – need to repair those specimens (collection upkeep).
  • Specimens will not fit in cabinet – shift folders left or right to make room (collection upkeep).
• Special considerations for projects and databases
  • Notify the Atlas of Florida project with new county record information.