[PCA] NEWS: Sorting the plants of the past

[Olivia Kwong]

An interesting article about the herbarium at the French Natural History 
Museum and how they're handling reclassifying their collection:

http://www.guardianweekly.co.uk/?page=editorial&id=1205&catID=17

Science: sorting the plants of the past
Friday August 14th 2009
Le Monde's Florence Evin meets a few of the 11 million precious specimens 
being sorted in the French Natural History Museum's dried garden

Nothing can distract Assia Lhotte from her work. Wearing rubber gloves, 
she turns the yellowed pages of the Singapore Free Press, dated 11 June 
1932, then removes from them a Borneo fern, ever so gently so as to keep 
it whole. According to its label, it was picked at an altitude of 5,300 
metres on the slopes of Mount Kinabalu by J and MS Clemens. Lhotte lays 
the frail branch on a sheet of permanent paper and fixes it with adhesive 
tape. It looks as if it has just been picked, yet it has been drying in a 
newspaper for 77 years without coming to any harm.

See the link above for the full article text.