Type Collections

[Nancy Hensold]

Dr. Rob Huxley:

>Here at  the Natural History Museum, London (BM)  we do not in
>general separate any  types from the main herbaria. ....
>
>I would be interested in the views of others on this.

Of herbaria I know:

US, MICH, and NY all keep types in a separate area.

MO puts types in protective folders and files them in the general collection
[As I remember, they file them under the 'annotated' name. I think some
attempt was made to keep a file going on what name types could be found
filed under, but this seems nightmarish to me].

At F, we keep ours at the end of the family, so not inconvenient to
herbarium-crawlers. We also photograph them, and file the photographs in the
general collection, usually under the original name, regardless of
annotation. (Altho for photos made recently, we don't always make prints -
saving money I guess.) I use and crawl the herbarium a lot, and like this
system fine.


Nancy Hensold
Department of Botany
Field Museum
Chicago, IL 60605
hensold at abis.fmnh.org