Webinar: Natural History at Home - Make Your Own Plant Press
Aired May 30, 2020
Gale Robertson:
Hello. Welcome everyone to this week's Natural History at Home Program. Before we begin, I wanted to send out a special thanks to our generous donors, volunteers, and other important partners who enable us to discover, create, and share new knowledge with the world today and every day, free of charge. While we wait for more people to join us, please make sure you have the materials that you'll need to make a plant press along with us during our program. Here is a supply list of what you'll need. Alright. So, you'll need two sturdy, flat surfaces for the outside of your plant press. You'll see in the picture here that I use to Dr. Seuss books, they're a nice, perfect size, cardboard that's large enough to cut three pieces of the same size as those outer pieces, newspaper, a pencil or marker, scissors, ties or straps to go around your plant press.
Alright. Hello, everyone out there. My name is Gale Robertson, and I am an educator at the National Museum of Natural History. I am so excited to welcome you to today's live family program. Today, we are joined by one of my colleagues at the museum, Erika Gardner, who is a museum specialist in the Botany department. She is going to teach us how to press plants for our own personal nature collections. Have you guys ever gone for a walk in your neighborhood, or maybe in the park, or in your backyard and you see a flower that you just love, like a dandelion? And you pick it, and then you take it inside, and it starts to wither, and then it looks a little sad. Well, Erika is going to show us how to preserve plants so that you can use them in your own personal collections, plant identification collection, or in our projects.
So, that's what we're going to be doing today. But before we do this, I wanted to quickly go over a few logistical things. Today's program is designed to be about 30 minutes long. There will be a recording of our program posted on our website in the upcoming weeks. So, if you could refer to it, if you need to leave, you need to take a break, please do what's best for your family. If you have any questions or comments for us during the program, please use the Q&A feature that you could find either at the bottom of the screen or the top of your screen. For those of you looking for the chat feature, we no longer have that function available for our program. So, if you want to ask us a question, or if we ask you a question and you want to answer it, please use the Q&A function to answer.
And as for your questions, we'll do our best to answer them as many as possible throughout today's program, and we will reserve a section at the end for answering some of your questions. We may not answer them immediately, but we will pause throughout to get those questions in. Also, we now have closed captioning available. To turn these on or off, click on the CC button that's located on the Q&A feature at the bottom or top of your screen. Okay. So now, while the museum is closed, we are broadcasting to you live from our homes. I'm hosting today's program from my apartment in Washington, D.C. Where are you joining us from? Use the Q&A feature to tell us where you're joining from and how old you are. Hi, Isabelle. Hello, Yakmet. Where are you guys joining us from today? I know that Erica were about to meet Erika today, and she's joining us from Bethesda, Maryland.
Alright, so Yakmet's from the Monterey Peninsula. Great. Hi, Winton, from Scarsdale, New York. We have some friends from ... well, from Madison, New Jersey. I have another friend from New Jersey, McLean, Virginia, just down the street, South Carolina, Louisville, Colorado. Another friend from New Jersey. Hi, Nichia, from D.C., Luna from New Jersey, Sophia and Ernesto from Falls Church, hello. Thomas from Alexandria, Virginia. We have some friends from California, Sacramento, Grand Junction, Colorado. Hi, Sophie from Darby. Okay. We have Amelia from Southern Virginia. Excellent. And Belin and Lauren from Chicago. It's so great that so many of you are here to join us today.
I saw that there was a question about what you need today. We will go over that list in a minute, but I just wanted to introduce Erika soon and just let you guys know what we're doing today. For those of you who've just logged on, my name is Gale Robertson, and I'm an educator at the museum, the National Museum of Natural History. Today, we are going to be talking about how to make your own plant collections. And to help us with that, we have Erika Gardner, from the botany department of our museum. Hi, Erika.
Erika Gardner:
Hello. Hi.
Gale Robertson:
Hi. So, Erika's going to take us through the steps of making a plant press from materials that you can find around your home. She's also going to show us how to collect and press plants so that you can make your own plant identification collection or use plants in your art project. So, thank you so much for joining us today, Erika.
Erika Gardner:
Oh, thank you. Thank you for joining and signing in today. Yeah.
Gale Robertson:
So, since today is all about collections, I wanted to ask the viewers, what do you collect already? What types of collections do you have in your home? I know when I was a kid, I like to collect stickers, and I like to make sure that I had a lot of different stickers, puffy stickers, glitter stickers, scratch 'n sniff stickers. What about you, Erika?
Erika Gardner:
Oh, no. I used to collect troll dolls. Product of the '90s.
Gale Robertson:
Yeah. Well, scratch 'n sniff stickers too. Alright. So, we have some people responding. So, we have friends that collect rocks, a bunch of plastic bottles, oh, rocks with an exclamation point. Oh, we have someone that collects plants. Mommy collects orchard, orchids. Oh, a lot of rocks, shells, stickers, leaves, bunny stuffies, Pokemon cards, feathers, fossils, ginkgo leaves. This is so great. So, many of you have collections already. And I see someone says, "Nothing," but that's okay, because today's program is about starting your own plant collection. So, that's great. I'm glad you're joining us today. Alright. So Erika, I have a question to start us off. I mentioned that you work in the museum's Botany department, can you tell us more about the Botany Department and what you do there?
Erika Gardner:
Yeah, of course. So, I work in the museum in the collection management side of our collection. And what we have, this is an herbarium specimen, which is where I work. I work in an herbarium, and we have over five million of these dried pressed plant specimens. And so, you can see it has a label on here about where the plant came from and who collected it, and the date. And then we have the specimen on the label, around the specimen. And then we also have our stamp on here showing that we own this specimen, that it's ours. So, these are really great resources for science, and this is what I take care of every day when I'm in the museum.
Gale Robertson:
Oh, great. So Erika, what you just showed us is an actual specimen from our museum collection. Is that right?
Erika Gardner:
Yep, that is one. Yep, an example of one.
Gale Robertson:
Cool. And so, why is it important for us to collect plants?
Erika Gardner:
Oh, great question. So, we have five million specimens of plants, which is actually a lot. So, you wonder, why would somebody need five million dried press plant specimens? Well, there are a lot of questions in the world that we can actually answer with plants. So, we can ask how plants are related to each other. And so, a lot of our curators actually work on those kinds of questions. You can also ask how plants move around the world, and how they got to where they are now, or where they originated from using their DNA. So, there's so many questions. Climate people are studying the climate and they can use our specimens for that too. So, all sorts of interesting questions come from our specimens.
And our specimens, we have some that are over 100 years old and older, and people are still using those specimens for their research. So, it's really great that we have these resources. We're trying to keep them preserved for as long as possible so that people can use them going further in the future. Because we don't know what questions people are going to be able to ask going forward. So, it's pretty cool.
Gale Robertson:
That's really cool. Yeah. And so, today, we're actually going to be showing people how to collect and preserve plants. So, why would people, like in our audience, want to collect and press plants?
Erika Gardner:
Yeah. So, having your own plant collection is really great because, a plant, when it's growing outside in the ground, it flowers, it goes to fruit real fast, and then it goes away, if you have an annual plant. Even with the tree, it flowers, it goes to fruit, and then it goes away. So, you don't get to remember the characteristics of that plant that make it that species. So, if you collect the flower and the fruit or any identification characters, such as the leaves, and you press that and put it on a piece of paper, you can actually use that to reference back to, say, in the summer, or in the winter when there's no plants flowering or leaking out.
So, you can always look back at your specimen and see what characters that species had. They're like flashcards, people get to use it as a reference collection. Or for art, so if you press the flower and you can look at it forever, every day you can look at it, you don't have to go outside and try to draw a flower, and then the next day you go outside and the flower's gone because someone mowed it with their lawnmower. So, it's just you're able to actually see it, and hold it, and keep it for your use.
Gale Robertson:
That's great. And so, that's what we're going to learn today, going outside, cutting plants, and then preserving them so that you could look at them later on. And talking about how to label them so that you can look back and say, "Oh, I collected that last year or last month." Great. So, why don't we go ahead and get started on making the plant press. I will share the screen so that everyone can make sure that they have their materials today. Alright. So, while Erika is getting set up with on her side, I just want to make sure that everyone has the materials. So, you'll need two sturdy flat surfaces. You'll see that we have examples of two hardcover books that are the same size.
You'll also need cardboard that is large enough to cut at least three pieces of the same size as your hardboard book or hardcover books, or whatever you're going to use on the outside. You'll need newspapers, marker or pencil, scissors, and ties or straps to go around the press. So, what we use at home, you'll see in the picture, is our shoelaces, but depending on the size of the press that you want to make, you could use hair ties, you can use rubber bands or belts. Okay. So Erika, how are you doing? Are you ready?
Erika Gardner:
Yeah, I think so.
Gale Robertson:
Okay. So, what is the next step? Or what's the first step actually?
Erika Gardner:
Alright. So, what we're going to make is something very similar to this plant press right here. This is one that I bought for about $10. And basically, we're going to make this, but with things that you can find from around your home. So, you can see it has these winged nuts on it. I find these to be really challenging when I'm in a rush, and trying to put this back together and run off to go eat dinner. So, this is a little more challenging to make and we're not going to make this, but we're going to make something very similar to it. We have this one that I made at home. So, this one you can see ... or like that, but they're about almost a similar size. And what I used to make this one are two drink coasters, so these are made out of bamboo, two rubber bands, and in between are cardboard and newspaper, very similar to this one right here.
So, you can see the cardboard and paper inside of this. The same exact thing. So, we're going to do this. We're going to make this, but at home. And so, it doesn't have to be this size because this is actually really tiny. So, I have this really cool clematis flower. You can see it's probably not going to fit in the press really well. So, if you do collect bigger plants, you can actually use two books that are the similar size, such as these two books that we have. You can see that they line up really well and they're a good size, so they can act as the drink coaster part of the plant press. So, it doesn't have to be that tiny. But because my screen's really tiny, and because it's cute to have a little plant press, we're going to actually make the smaller one today.
So, what we'll do, I'll show you, is we'll take these rubber bands off and the drink coasters. There we go. And inside you'll see it's cardboard, newspaper, another piece of cardboard, another piece of newspaper. So, you just keep doing this for as many plants that you want to press. So, your press can be itty bitty, it can be ginormous. The bigger your plant press gets, you're going to need to put more pressure on it. We'll talk about that later. Oh, there's a plant in there. So, yeah. So, that's basically what we're going to do. So, the first step we're going to do to make the plant press, to make our little tiny one, is you'll get a piece of cardboard. And I'm pretty sure a lot of you have been receiving shipments to your home lately from orders. And so, there's probably cardboard piling up by your door or your recycling bin.
So, this is a piece of cardboard, I just cut it to the size of the coaster or a smaller piece. So, what we're going to do is we're going to use a marker or a pencil, whichever one. I like the marker because it's bolder. And so, what we can do is we can put the coaster on the cardboard, and then what you'll do is trace your coaster, or book, or whatever size that you're using for the top and bottom of your plant press. So, there's one. I'm going to need three because, as you'll see, when I put the plant press together, three is the minimum number of cardboard that you will need. So, just trace it three times. Alright. And then one more time. So ... oops. Alright. There's my three tracings. Then you'll need a pair of scissors, or if your parent has a box cutter, they can just box cut this really fast. But I'm going to use a pair of scissors because some of you might have scissors on hand. So, what we'll do is, we will ... and you can cut it up. I'm going to follow my trace lines.
Gale Robertson:
Alright. [inaudible 00:15:21] I just want to ask how they're doing and whether they are following along or caught up with that.
Erika Gardner:
Alright. So, there's one piece, and here is the second, coming right up. Alright. Alright, two pieces and our last one.
Gale Robertson:
Is there a reason why you use cardboard?
Erika Gardner:
Great question. Yes. So, a lot of people actually press plants in a dictionary or a big book in between the pages, and that actually can damage your book. So, the water content from the plant might actually get onto the pages of the book. The reason why we use this method, with the cardboard and the paper in between two hard pieces, is because the air can flow through the cardboard. See how the cardboard has these chambers? The air can flow through and dry your plants out evenly, and the color will actually look better too. So, if you put it in a closed environment, like a book, the water content doesn't have anywhere really to go except for in the pages, and so it can get soggy. So, the cardboard actually helps with airflow, and the newspapers help absorb the water content. So, this is actually a really great method. And also, if you put your plant press by a fan, the air will push through and dry your plants faster. So, that is why we use cardboard, because you can see cardboard has these corrugated ... Trying to find the holes. Yeah.
Alright. So, we have three pieces of cardboard, and then they match our top piece of our press. What we're going to need next is newspaper, because the newspaper is going to go in between each piece of cardboard. So, what we'll do is, we'll get a piece of newspaper. Let me find it right here. Alright, here we go. Here's our newspaper. Alright. So, this came to us in the mail. So, we keep getting these flyers in the mail, and so you can keep those, they're great free resource. Instead of tossing them in the recycling, you can actually use them for your plant press. So, same thing, we'll take our drink coaster and put it on top. The best thing to do when you're cutting newspaper for your plant press is, see how there's a crease on these papers, you can actually put your drink coaster on that crease, let me move it over, so you can put your drink on the crease, so you can get two pieces that actually fold.
And you don't have to make it fold, it just the crease is already there. So, using what it has. So this, I'm going to do two, because for every three cardboards, you need ... well, not three, yeah, so two newspapers or three cardboards. So, if you want more newspaper, you just make more cardboard. So, you have it traced out. And then again, we're just going to cut it. It's like cutting fabric, you've been making masks, cut on the crease.
Gale Robertson:
Yeah. And Erika, can I ask, can you explain to us why the crease is helpful? Why you want to have a crease in the newspaper?
Erika Gardner:
So, you want to have a crease because we're going to put the plants in here. So, I will show you an example real quickly because we'll do it again. But you'll see the plant, we'll put it in here, sticking to me, and then we'll close the papers. So, it's good to have paper on the top of the plant and then the bottom of the plant. So, if you just have one piece of newspaper and then put the cardboard on top it, you could do it, but it's not going to be great. But having newspaper on both sides is best for drying the plant.
Gale Robertson:
And it looks like it contains your plant too so that they don't slide all over the place. It's better than putting two new papers on top of each other that aren't creased.
Erika Gardner:
Right. Exactly. Because if you bump your plant press, then you could damage your plant. So, we have the tops of our plant press, we have the newspapers and the cardboard, and then we also have these rubber bands that we're going to use to strap our press together. So-
Gale Robertson:
Great. Erika, just to let everyone have a chance to catch up ... Oh, yeah, Brady has a question about what we were talking about. "What can you use instead of newspaper?" Is there anything else?
Erika Gardner:
Yeah. Good question. You can use printer paper, cotton rag paper. Oh, this is a tough one. It's funny, because all of this material right here, besides the drink coasters, this is what botanists use in the field. Our cardboard and newspaper, that's been our tools for, goodness gracious, I don't know how long. But we've been using cardboard and newspaper forever. And so, I know people buy unprinted newspaper to press their plants in. But I don't. Don't use wax paper. Whatever you do, stay a million miles away from wax paper, because wax paper's not going to absorb the water content from the plant. So, don't ever put wax paper in any of this because your plants will actually mold. But yeah, newspaper is our go-to.
Gale Robertson:
Yeah. Is it because that absorbs the water best?
Erika Gardner:
Yes. Yes. So, the newspaper is able to pull the water best. There are these things called blotters that people use in the tropics, or they use tin. So, depending on where you're from, if you are from the tropics, you can use sheets of corrugated tin and blotters that are really thick, like this felt kind of material. But you use that in combination with the newspaper. So, you put the plant in the newspaper, the blotter on top of the newspaper, because plants in the tropics tend to have a lot more water content than the plants I have here because they're from the rainforest, and so they absorb a lot of water. So, that is actually a technique that people use in the tropics to dry their plants better and faster.
Gale Robertson:
Well, actually, Laura had a comment that's related to that. She said, "Sometimes we put flowers in between paper towels in the microwave."
Erika Gardner:
Oh, yeah. You can do that.
Gale Robertson:
It still has that absorbent quality. And then the Gleason family was asking, "Does the ink on the newspaper transfer to the plant?"
Erika Gardner:
Oh, good question. I've been doing this for a long time, and I have seen newspaper from all over the world used ... Because a lot of our collectors collect everywhere, like Mongolia, China, trying to think where other collectors have been, Venezuela, Guatemala. So, we get a lot of newspapers from around the world that our plant specimens come to us in. And I have not ever noticed damage or transferring ink to the plant, which is ... It's a good question actually. No. For some reason, no, actually. I'm trying to think ... The only ... Oh, sorry.
Gale Robertson:
Oh no, I was going to say that is a good question. Yeah.
Erika Gardner:
The only time I've seen newspaper get stuck to a plant is if it's a cactus. So, if people cut the cactus pad in half and they put it on the sheet, the cactus will actually glue itself to the newspaper and then the paper pulls off with the cactus. But that's okay because that's the part we don't usually show on a specimen, we show the other side of the cactus pad.
Gale Robertson:
Great. Alright. I think we're all caught. I think everyone should be all caught up. So, I think we're ready to assemble our plant press.
Erika Gardner:
Oh, great. Okay. So, I'm going to move the straps out of the way. So, you'll take the front ... or the top and the bottom of your plant press, and you will put one cardboard down, just pick which one will be the bottom. So, you put one cardboard, you take one of your newspapers, and then you put that on top of the cardboard. Take another piece of cardboard, put that on top. Take the other newspaper, and then you put that right there. So, you're making a sandwich or a layered cake. And then the last, but not least, is the last piece of cardboard. Then you'll take the top of your plant press and put it right there. So, you can do this over, and over, and over, and your plant press can be that big if you wanted it to be. Or it can be just two sheets, or it could be one sheet. It's up to you however many plants you want to press.
So, when you have this assembled, you're pretty much ready to start putting plants in. But if you want to see what the finished product looks like, you will take your rubber bands and put them on top, or over around them, around your plant press. And so, that is your finished assembled plant press. Super simple to make. You can make one for your grandma or for someone's birthday. It's good little present.
Gale Robertson:
[inaudible 00:24:42] that because that's very portable.
Erika Gardner:
Yeah. You can put in a backpack and go. The only limitation is you can't put big plant parts in, like the clematis, here. So, you'll have to keep it small. But like I said, if you want to make a bigger press, you just do exactly what we just did with the book that's a little bigger. So, yeah. So now, we will press the plants.
Gale Robertson:
Yeah. Now that we have our plant presses on ready to collect plants, I know that you were going to show us the best way to arrange the plants in the press.
Erika Gardner:
Right. Okay. So, we'll do a little one first, and then I'll show you my plant press that I've been using during quarantine, which has been pretty fun because it looks like the plant press when I was in college. So, we'll take the rubber bands off for now and then open your plant press up. So, take the top off, remove one cardboard, and then you'll open your newspaper up. So, this is the fun part, because I collected plants this morning for this and I've decided that the best plant for this press is going to be the azalea that I collected from my yard. Yeah, it's really pretty. So, this is a really fun plant. And so, what you want to do, the best method for pressing flowers is actually to put them face down, which doesn't seem like the way to do it, but it actually is, because most of us want to put the flower face up because it's pretty.
But if you do that, if you put it face up and you smash it, the flower's just going to be closed. So, what you want to do is, if you want the flower to actually be presented open when it's completely dry, put the flower face down and then press it down, because you're going to smash these plants anyways so you can be a little crazy with it. So, see how I pushed it down face down? That way, the petals are all open, and then you just close the newspaper, move the newspaper aside, do it again. So, you could just keep doing this over, and over, and over.
I have another one to press, but instead, I'm going to do this little pea that I found, our pea flowers, they're in the pea family. And then also, if I have something, I have a marker all over my hand, if I have something that is definitely not going to fit like this, what I can do is, I can take some clippers or the scissors I just used to make the plant press, and I'm like, "Oh, I really like this cute little yellow flowers." So you can just cut the flowers off. You're going to lose a lot of details about the plant, but if you're just going for the flower and the art side of things.
So, the same thing, you would just put the flowers down, face down, and then spread the petals. And then you could spend time doing this, opening the petals. This guy right here, this pea flower, you don't really need to worry about which side that you're going to press it because it's the same all the way around, unless you want all the flowers to stay on one side, you can move them, but it looks like a toothbrush. For the most part, you can just put them in and then close the press. So, when you're finished, when you've completed that, you can close up your plant press. And this is the part where you actually want to press your plants, you want them to be squished as much as possible.
So, if you have something a little bulky, and these rubber bands or whatever you're using, because you could use string or anything to strap your plant press to make it tight, if this is not doing it and your plants are a little bulky, they're not going to dry out really well, you can put a really big book on top of this. People are like, "Oh, I put my plants in a big book." But instead, you can actually put a big book on top of this to add weight, or bricks, or something that will actually smash the plants as flat as possible. You don't want plants coming out of the side, like that little flower right there, it's trying to escape, so you can rearrange the plant. So yeah, you just want everything contained within your plant press when you're finished. And real quickly, I'll show you my plant press that I have.
Gale Robertson:
Erika, while you're doing that, Amy and Susan want to know how long do they keep the plant in the press to make sure it's dry?
Erika Gardner:
That is a great question because it all depends on this very ... This is the science part of pressing. So, depending on the plant that you collect, depending on how much moisture content or water content is in your plant, it could take longer. So, if you have a succulent, that's definitely going to take longer than two, maybe even three weeks, sometimes up to a month. Sometimes, succulents will actually keep growing in a press. Even if you smash them, they will still try to find a way to grow. So, it's all a learning process. And so, the things I'm pressing here, I've noticed, take about almost up to two weeks depending on where I put the press. So right now, it's really hot in our house ... well, not in our house, but it's getting hotter outside too, so putting this in a hot place around our house has actually been pretty easy lately.
Whereas a couple months ago, my plants weren't drying as fast because the house was kind of cold. But here's my plant press. It's hard to see with this view, but you can see how many cardboards I have in the middle of it. It's actually a lot. So, I keep adding to it. So, I'll show you real quickly how you would do a bigger piece. Because doing the little small plants, you just get the flower, but if you have a bigger press, you can actually get more of the plant in it. So, the same method, you would just put your bottom of the press down the cardboard, and then a newspaper here, the same thing. So, if you're doing something really big, like this clematis flower that I got from here, so if you're doing something like this, you would do the same thing, face down, spread the petals and make sure that they're where you want them.
The one thing I didn't mention, which I'll mention it now, because little press didn't really have much room to do it, but on our newspaper, the best thing to do, and this is my number one tip, that way you know, when you asked how long does it take, well, it's really easy to lose track of time, especially these days, I don't know if it's Saturday or Sunday sometimes, so the best thing to do is to write the date on the newspaper. So, let's say, May 30th. And this actually helps me a lot to remember the time, the date that I pressed this particular sheet, because then I'll know how long things are taking, especially when the climate is changing in our house. So, right now, we're talking about turning the AC on and we're like, "No," but we have to.
So anyhow, other things... So one of the reasons why to collect plants too, so this is a clover, you put it in, and then this is also another clover, but if you look at them, they're totally different species. So, you can document plant diversity in your yard just by looking at weeds. And so, these are the same genus but two different species, which is really fun. And so, those will be fun to see when they're pressed. And they're really neat when you start looking at them up close.
Gale Robertson:
So, that's more perfect than the other.
Erika Gardner:
Yeah, it's really neat. And they're weeds, but they're pretty weeds. And the same thing, you would just put the other cardboard on top, so I'm just going to do those for now, and then put the top of the press on. That's it.
Gale Robertson:
When people go out, because you mention ... So, you know all these plans. You can look at them and you can identify them. But do you have any tips for people, as they're going out, what tools they should bring with them when they're going out and how to identify them if they don't know what they are?
Erika Gardner:
Yeah. Great question. So, figured the press, the harder ... Oops, I'm sweating. So, the tools that I use when I go out to collect is I use this hand pruner, you can use a pair of scissors if you don't feel comfortable using gardening tools. So, finding on a plant, so this particular plant, this primrose was growing on the weedy part of our street over here. So, what I did was, I wanted to get some buds from the flowers or the flower buds on, just showing different stages of development, and then the flowers I want on there as well, and also the leafs. I think the leaves are neat to have on your specimen too. So, you can just do the flower or you can pick a node and cut from there, and see if this was for the little press and this one's for the bigger press. But yeah, using clippers help.
A field notebook. So, this is my field notebook from when I was doing my field work collecting plants from the desert. And so, I used to put plant parts in my field notes and write about them. And a leaf sample, that's what it says, of course that's a leaf. I was a very young botanist at the time. And then information about the plant, so the location, the GPS coordinates, what slope, dry, exposed ... So, just really awesome information. So, if you wanted to get really scientific with where you collected this, you could write, I found this on the corner of the street. And then we also put numbers to our specimens. So, number 37 was chamaesyce. So, you can number your collections as well. So, instead of just putting the date, you can put the date and your collection number on the newspaper too. So, that's fun. Yeah. So, field notes ... Oh yeah, sorry.
Gale Robertson:
Field notes, scissors-
Erika Gardner:
Last but not least. I can't show you my phone, but there is an app called Seek, which is through iNaturalist. So, if you don't know what this plant is, you can actually use your app to help you get to the group of plants or sometimes it gets you to the species. So, that's really a great way too. So, how I said chamaesyce ... Yeah. So, how do I know the plant names? Navarretia here, I know them, but the app can give you those names too. So, that's a great way to know what plant you have.
Gale Robertson:
Yes, and thank you for mentioning that. I'll actually give you a chance to go ahead and switch your camera and I'll tell families about that app. So, we actually have a link to it. And so this app that Erika had mentioned, let me share my screen, it uses image recognition technology to help identify the plants. So, you could use your camera, focus on the plant, and it'll help identify it. So, that you could write that down as you collect plants and then preserve them. Also, we want to see your plant presses. And so, if you could send us photos of your plant press to NMNH-FamilyPrograms@si.edu, we love seeing your creation, we love seeing what you do along with us. And so, please send those along. Also, when you go out and use your plant presses and collect plants, I just want to let you guys know that Erika will be joining us again on June 13th and we will be showing you how to take those press plants and mount them, similar to that plant specimen that she showed at the beginning of our program.
So, she'll take you to the techniques of taking your preserved plants and putting in a nice mount that looks like our botanical specimens at the museum. And we'll talk about labeling them and all of that. So, Erika's going to join us again. So, have fun out there collecting plants and finding some really cool things and then pressing them. And then we look forward to you joining us again on June 13th. And so now, I know that we're over, but I do want to make sure that we answer some questions that people have brought up. Isabelle was asking, "Can a plant press have up to 100 layers?"
Erika Gardner:
Good question. Oh, my gosh. I have a great story about collecting from the field work I used to do. And the plant presses that a botanist use, we don't use books or drink coasters, we actually use this wooden lattice, similar to the little tiny plant press, but it's actually made out of wood, is really sturdy. And so, when we would collect, we would collect, I think, if I look at my field notes, I can tell you how many I got in one collecting event. But sometimes, it would be up to 70 plants and we would put that in one plant press. So, you can make the plant press as big as possible. And then the fun thing was, when we would come back from the field and put our plant press together, somebody would have to stand on top of it to squish it.
Yeah. So, it was like a three-man effort. So, you'd have one person standing on top of the plant press, I think have a picture, I should find picture, and then the straps are a little more sturdier, they're not things you find around your home, you them online, and we would cinch the straps down really tight. And so, the press would go from being super huge to about that size. Yeah. So, you can fit a lot. And there's really cool pictures online of botanist collecting, we call it hay baling. So, if you're collecting a lot of specimens and press, you're called a hay baler, because you're just trying to collect a lot of specimens into a bale of ... So, the plant press looks like a bale of hay pretty much at the end.
Gale Robertson:
Wow, that's cool. Actually, Alan would like to see the plant press that you just [inaudible 00:38:31].
Erika Gardner:
Yeah. The big one?
Gale Robertson:
Yeah, the big one and the small one.
Erika Gardner:
Perfect. Yeah. So yeah, it was hard to show it on that view, but here is the small one that we made together for this one. And then here is the one that I've been using. So, as we keep getting shipments to the house, I keep adding cardboard to it. The cardboard will last you quite a long time. There's really cool stories about ... Because we ship our specimens with cardboard, not like this, but we bundle a bunch of specimens in between two sheets of cardboard and send them off to another institution, the cardboard travel around the world and would come back. So, your cardboard can actually last a really long time. So, instead of sending it to a landfill or recycling plant, you could actually keep this for maybe 100 years, until it starts to deteriorate. But the most part, the cardboard will last long. The newspaper is something that you will want to toss out over time as it gets a little warped, and then replace it with new newspaper or paper towels, which actually is a good idea. Yeah, so this is the big one compared to the little one.
Gale Robertson:
All one. Thank you. And then I think we'll take one more question because we are very over. Thank you, for those of you that have stayed on. Yakmet wants to know, "How do you put a cactus in it?"
Erika Gardner:
Good question. This is a really fun one. So, a cactus actually requires a lot of work. You have to get a knife and cut the cactus pad down to turn the pad into two pieces. There's all sorts of methods out there, putting salt on the cactus, so it pulls the water, or putting alcohol, which is actually a hot commodity these days. You would soak the cactus in alcohol and then that'll also pull the water out. So, the most part, you want to pull all the moisture out before you actually press it. Because what happens is, if you leave it in the press for too long, it'll start getting moldy and you'll lose your specimen. And changing the paper out. I had a friend who would actually change the newspaper out every day because she wanted the specimen to dry fast. So, great question. And cacti are actually the most challenging to press and dry out.
Gale Robertson:
Yeah. So, Yakmet, if you do that, we can't wait to see what you do with that.
Erika Gardner:
Oh, and wear gloves. If you get a cactus, wear gloves because they can get you even when they're dead. They can hurt you.
Gale Robertson:
Well, Erika, I think we're going to end our program now, but I'm so excited to have you back on June 13th for our plant mounting program. I know that I'll have some plants ready to mount by then. So yes, thank you all for joining us today. Caregivers, there will be a short survey when you click out of the Zoom, so please fill that out and let us know what you're looking for this summer. And yeah, we look forward to you guys joining us again online. Thank you so much. Bye.
Erika Gardner:
Thank you.
Gale Robertson:
Have a good weekend. Bye, Erika.
Erika Gardner:
Bye.
