Field studies are key to the know-how of any ecological and phytosociological relationships of plant life. Such studies may be made either in natural habitats or on vegetation reared and maintained in test gardens. For the duration of field studies particular recording of the region of the collection; habitat types; soil traits;
Botanical Garden vs Herbarium Garden
The main difference between a botanical garden and a herbarium garden is that a botanical garden is a place built to preserve and maintain living plant collections of various species. On the other hand, The herbarium is a facility dedicated to the preservation and maintenance of dried and well-pressed plant specimens in the form of a collection.
A botanical garden is an area devoted to the cultivation and care of the simplest living plant collections of all types, starting with the simplest of them all: the houseplant. A botanical garden is a garden that is devoted to the collecting, cultivation, preservation, and presentation of a broad range of plants.
In most cases, herbarium gardens are located inside botanical gardens. In addition to dried and properly-pressed plant specimens, they also have wooden materials, sketches, photographs, micro slides, and other such items on hand. A herbarium is a collection of preserved plants that are stored, cataloged, and arranged systematically for study by professional taxonomists.
Comparison Table Between Botanical Garden and Herbarium Garden
| Parameters of Comparison | Botanical Garden | Herbarium Garden |
| Definition | An area created to preserve and maintain dwelling plant collections of different species | An area constructed to preserve and keep the dried and well-pressed flowers specimens as a set |
| Type of plants | Preserves a stay series of vegetation. | Preserves plant life in its dried shape. |
| Maintenance | Maintained by government, semi-government or private organizations. | Maintained mostly by research laboratories, colleges, botanical gardens, and museums. |
| Usage | It is for scientific study, conservation, public education, aesthetics, and recreation. | It is for reference or study. |
| Size | The property is rather large and includes greenhouses. | The presence of a minor institution inside a botanical garden or within a university is common. |
What is Botanical Garden?
A botanical garden is a structure constructed to maintain and house a collection of plants that are in residence. A botanical garden is often kept below the level of medical oversight to serve research and educational purposes. Because they are essential to the running of a botanical garden’s labs, libraries, herbaria, and even museums might be found inside it, it is significantly more likely to be found within one.
Each botanical garden, for a variety of reasons that include location, size, staff, financial resources, and the conditions of its charter, develops unique areas of interest that are distinct from those of the other botanical gardens. The garden is often thought of as a place where flowers, fruits, or vegetables are grown for consumption. Botanic or botanical gardens are educational establishments that expose medical professionals as well as the general public or laymen to conscious and enlightened interests in plant life.
Their facilities will include a herbarium, greenhouses, and arboretums, as well as viewing sites and other enterprises like museums. As well as hiring medical professionals, botanical gardens also recruit people to work in plant-growing bodies of workers and to write books for visitors.
What is Herbarium Garden?
Typically, a herbarium may be located inside a botanical garden, however, it can also be found in other locations. Herbariums may also be found at universities, which is another source of information. An herbarium is a collection of dried and pressed plant specimens, as well as information about the specimens they include. Researchers and students may utilize this information to better their scientific studies and research efforts in the future.
Plant taxa may be defined using specimens maintained in a herbarium as reference material, which can be found in botanical collections. Normally, herbarium staff mounts dried plants or elements of vegetation on a sheet of paper known as a ‘exsiccate,’ but depending on the material, they may also use opportunity techniques of protection, such as storing them in containers or preserving them in alcohol or other preservatives, to ensure the longevity of the specimen.
The herbarium plays an important role in the accurate identification of plants, as well as serving as a biodiversity database. The Dehradun Herbarium (DD) is the most useful in the United States for the survey, collection, and identification of forestry species, and it is the most widely recognized herbarium in the world.
Main Differences Between Botanical Garden and Herbarium Garden
- Plant collections of different kinds are maintained in a botanical garden, while a herbarium garden is where a collection of dried, compressed, and carefully preserved plant specimens is kept.
- Botanical gardens act as outdoor laboratories whereas herbarium gardens act as a source of records about plants.
- In botanical gardens, the residing vegetation is simplest grown whereas herbarium gardens also have wooden substances, micro slides, pics, drawings, and many others.
- Botanical gardens educate city arborists within the plantation of trees in city areas while herbarium gardens help in studies and coaching sports and inaccurate identification of plant life.
- Botanical gardens initiate research at the tropical and temperate ecosystems and their biota while Herbarium gardens are used as a source of cloth for chemo-taxonomical and anatomical studies.
Conclusion
Both herbariums and botanical gardens are concerned with the preservation of plant life. A herbarium keeps flora in its dried form, while a botanical lawn retains a sequence of living plants in their natural state. Both are important for plant-based overall research as well as for understanding the functionalities of plants. Herbarium collections are typically found at botanical gardens, arboretums, natural history museums, and universities, among other places.
The world’s biggest herbaria, many of which can be found in Europe, contain hundreds of thousands of specimens, some of which date back hundreds of years or more, making them among the most important collections on the planet. Botanical dictionaries, also known as herbaria, are the “dictionaries” of the plant kingdom, and they contain comparative data that is vital for plant taxonomy and systematics research.
References
- https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ele.12308
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0269749114004370