How to arrange a new Herbarium?

[Jim Croft]

> ... Until our classifications achieve a higher level of stability (
> a goal I do believe is achievable in the near future), pragmatism will have
> to outweigh the ideal.

and part of this pragmatism must be a necessary lag between herbarum
arrangement, comtemporary taxonomic thought, and the often arbitrary
acceptance,or not, of this thought by the institution or curator.

This has implications for herbarium database design. We have found it
necessary to build in the ability to store taxonomy as published by the
author, the taxonomy accepted by the institution, AND the physical
storage arrangement of the herbarium which often represents a taxonomy
of sorts.

Most of us carry fragments of this around in our heads and pull them out
in random order... this undoubtedly fuels the widley held belief that
taxonomists can never make up their minds... :)

jim