A Neotropical Savanna

At the rate it takes me to identify plants, I’ll never identify even 10 percent of the plants on our property, never mind all the plants in this savanna ecosystem. Fortunately, botanists love plants and they have a reputation for helping people identify them. I know I’ll be calling on Panama botanists one of these days, and so…

I have a plant press.

Not that it was my idea. For awhile I was topping the table surfaces around the house with stacks of newspapers, cut-up cardboard boxes, and drying plants held down by concrete blocks. Joyce got tired of looking at them and presented me with this fine, professional press one birthday.

Owning a plant press may be a status symbol among certain crowds, harumph, but the plant press itself does not guarantee that a sample I bring to a botanist will be correctly identified. So I’m going to run through my collecting and pressing procedure here in the hopes that alert readers will bring mistakes to my attention.

First are the tools for the collection itself.

I’ve created a field data sheet (attached to clipboard) to help me remember to write down important pieces of information, such as date collected, location of sample, and the nature of the area. I also have a field notebook in case I feel I need to write a poem to the plant or go off on some tirade that I thought about while walking to the plant location – anything that would not be appropriate content for the data sheet. A pencil, not a pen. Plastic bag (usually I take several, of assorted sizes. If I collect more than one species of plant, I keep each in a separate bag, along with its data sheet.) Pruning shears.

Digital photographs. Here’s a mosaic of 18 photos I took of one small plant vine, its flowers, its leaves, its surroundings.

Of all those images, I believe this one, although it’s not very clear, gives the best idea of the plant:

Once the sample is collected, I take it back to the plant press to preserve.

First, I open the press and place a corrugated cardboard ventilator on top.

The idea that corrugated cardboard could be a “ventilator” was new to me until I looked closely at the rows of ventilators in my plant press.

Plenty of air circulation there! The solid white areas are unused blotters. So far, there is only one sample in this press, and it’s near the bottom, just above the first ventilator.

I then spread some newspapers to receive the sample.

Then I place the sample on the newspaper.

I add a prepared label, which is a summary of my field notes.

I fold the newspaper and place a blotter on top of it.

Add another ventilator and then all the other ventilators, blotters, and spare newspapers that are not in use. Close the press, pulling the bands tight.

Finally, I take the press into the house and find a sunny spot.

I keep it on a wheeled cart so I can move the whole apparatus to follow the sun for much of the day. After about a week, I stop tracking the sun but keep the cart in an area as dry as possible. In the rainy season, I keep it close to the dehumidifier.

So there it is, my procedure. I do hope anyone who sees any gaps or flaws in it will let me know. Any botanist who will be kind enough to look at my plants in the future will thank you!