This page contains useful tips for creating herbarium specimens 
It covers:
  • ​Useful tips for collecting and pressing plant material - including reference articles from which these were drawn
  • The Herbarium Handbook - a book which is useful to those wanting to create their own
  • The unveiling of "Herbie " - the conservation of the original Herbarium Cabinet of Carl Linnaeus at the Linnean Society
  • Five videos about how to press plants, develop a Herbarium specimen and create a Herbarium collection.

Useful tips for collecting and pressing plant material
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The process for collecting and preserving herbarium specimens involves
  • collection of plant material in the field - use bags to transport material to where preparation for drying takes place
  • preparing material in the field and for transport; it's essential that plants are preserved flat as soon as possible after collection to prevent wilt and shrivelling. The best material to use is anything which is absorbent such as sheets of newspaper or blotting paper. Any specimens that can fit into a jar or vial may be "pickled" by using any of several different preservatives.
  • mounting dried material on a herbarium sheet - it's best to use archival material for the mounting sheet if intended for long term preservation (otherwise the paper will deteriorate). Fixing media also needs to be archival. Full-size herbarium mounting sheets are usually about 43 cm long x 28 cm wide / 11x 17 inch composed of either 100% alpha cellulose or cotton rag paper that is acid free and pH neutral. 
  • labelling of material collected - details required are plant name; where collected; any field notes
  • preservation of the material - Consideration must be given to how to preserve specimens from any inadvertently collected pests. Common methods are: Freezing (48-72 hours); microwave dried material - but NOT mounted specimens on herbarium sheets (1-2 minutes); Insect deterrents eg moth balls
  • storage - preserved materials are commonly stored in boxes or tied bundles
  • filing - filing needs to be systematic and properly labelled
Nepenthes herbarium specimens
Nepenthes herbarium specimens deposited at the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, France.
REFERENCE: 
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Botanic Gardens / Herbarium / Departments of Botany Other Institutions Other websites
The Herbarium Handbook
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The Herbarium Handbook
This is the commonly recognised standard reference manual for how to create herbarium specimens from plant material.

It provides a thorough and professional guide to collecting and preserving plants.
Paperback: 348 pages
Publisher: Royal Botanic Gardens Kew; Third Edition, edition (5 Sept. 2000)

Average Customer Rating out of 5 stars:
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  • in USA: 4.1 based on 5 customer reviews​

BUY THIS BOOK​
Herbarium Handbook 3rd Edition - from Amazon.co.uk

The "Unveiling of Herbie" - The original Herbarium Cabinet of Carl Linnaeus
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The retirement of Professor Glen Lucas as Treasurer of the Linnean Society after 20 years of service was marked by the  Linnean Society commissioning the conservation of the Herbarium Cabinet of Carl Linnaeus - known at the Society as "Herbie".

This video records a presentation by Glenn Benson, the Curator of Artefacts at the Linnean Society.
Linnaeus invented the modern herbarium method which dispensed with “books” of plants and instead involved mounting each specimen on a separate unbound sheet of paper.  Then these sheets are stored in folders, like file folders, which makes it easy to add to the collection or remove a single sheet for study.
REFERENCE:
  • The Linnean Society - The world's oldest extant biological society, based in London.
  • Linnaean Herbarium Cabinet - It is one of the three original cabinets designed by Linnaeus himself and built to house his Herbarium. In his Philosophia Botanica (1751), Linnaeus gives detailed instructions how the cabinet should be designed and built: "A wooden cupboard, which can be closed by two long folding doors, nicely corresponding to a vertical partition."
  • The purchase of knowledge: James Edward Smith and the Linnean collections - In 1784, the herbarium and manuscripts of the great Swedish naturalist, Carl Linnaeus, were acquired by a young medical student and non-conformist, James Edward Smith. The purchase was an important step in the establishment of the Linnean system of classification in Britain. 
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Linnaeus' herbarium cabinet

Video Guides: how to create Herbarium specimens and a Herbarium
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​Five videos about how to press plants, develop a Herbarium specimen and create a Herbarium collection.
  • The first two are produced by staff of the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh and show how a botanic garden prepare specimens for a Herbarium
  • The third is focuses on pressing a plant which lives in water
  • The fourth and fifth are produced by a herbalist and provides a very simple explanation of how anybody can produce a Herbarium at home.
Filmed at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, this video provides a thorough introduction to collecting and pressing plants to make herbarium specimens.
Real-time demonstration of a dried plant specimen being mounted on a herbarium sheet before being laid away in the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh's Herbarium. Please note this video is uncut. Copyright Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.
Below you can read Per-Olof Stolt's online book "Anne-Marie's Herbarium". He scanned the pressed plants, using a digital film scanner, in order to make the images for the book
Anne-Marie's Herbarium is a time travel 80-years back, through an old school herbarium. I've digitilized the dried plants to give them their old splendour back.
A simple way to make a Herbarium Press for maritime plants eg algae
A simple and lucid technical explanation by Rosalee de la Forêt of:
1) how to create a Plant Press to give yourself plant material work with during "the slow season" when snow is on the ground. This version uses stapled velcro rather than a strap to make your plant press tight. Much simpler for some people!  
2) How to press a plant
This is the follow up video to the one above.  This one looks at what you do a week later once you've got a dried plant. It shows you how to get the dried plant on to paper and then how to create a Herbarium Collection.