infocus #21 March 2011 A Comparison of Herbarium Dried, Critical Point Dried and Fresh Plant Material using High Vacuum and Variable Pressure SEM

The Herbarium at the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh (RBGE), houses some three million dried plant specimens collected from all over the world. Many of these are precious because of historical connections with people such as Charles Darwin and others are valuable because they may be the only remaining records of extinct species. Dating from the 17th century, the Herbarium collection provides botanists and taxonomists with an invaluable reference aid to plant classification.

DOI: DOI: 10.22443/rms.inf.1.67

In order to study plant microstructure, botanists require microscopes and RBGE has approximately 200 light microscopes many of which can be found in the Garden’s Herbarium. The Garden also has electron microscope facilities and the microscope used during the present study was a LEO Supra 55VP. This field emission scanning electron microscope (SEM) is fitted with a variable pressure chamber which permits the scanning of fresh, un-processed samples.

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Author

Frieda Christie

Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh UK

Frieda manages the Electron Microscope Suite and oversees the use of some 200 light microscopes at the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh. Her SEM images have been published in a number of botanical journals and websites. They have also appeared in calendars and on the cover of the Journal of Microscopy. In July 2000, East Lothian Council funded an exhibition of her work at North Berwick Museum as part of their Millennium Celebration of Science and Nature. The exhibition toured various venues throughout Scotland, including the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow. Frieda has won prizes in the RMS Micrograph Competition and Visions of Science competitions. She has also collaborated with local artists on several science and art projects.