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JOSHUA WIESE: First thing we do, is when we find the specimen in the field, we try to take a much of a sample as we possibly can.  We try to take the roots, the leaves, and the flowers of the specimen. We put it into a plant press like this. And basically, itís a piece of wood, and a piece of cardboard, and newspaper. And we put the plant in here and display it out so we can see all the floral features. And we lay this over, and place another piece of cardboard on there. And the cardboard helps air move through here so it dries the plant out quicker. Then we take another piece of wood and put it on top. And then we bind it tightly with this belt-type thing.

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JOSHUA WIESE: Immediately after the plant is dried, we bring it back to the herbarium and double-check that itís been identified correctly. Some plants we cannot identify in the field, simply because we arenít able to carry microscopes with us. After the plantís dry, we can then go move to mounting. Mounting goes on acid-free herbarium paper. Itís a special paper that does not degrade the plant over time. We take those plants and we lay them out so the floristic properties are displayed properly. And then we use Elmerís glue and a mix of water to mount the plants to the paper. And then we take a label, a standardized label that we have for all of our plants, and then we put the plant name, where it was collected, and who collected it and some of the plant associations, what other plants it was growing with. And some general geology-type terms. Whether it was in upland or a lowland, a wet area, was it in standing water or was it in sandy areas. And that way we know we can have a record of where these plants actually occur throughout our property.

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