So, I am a #botanist. This means, I'm not a gardener (sorry, I can't help with your dying houseplants) but that I am trained to identify and name #plants. Applying the correct name to an organism is important. It's the same a calling a person with the correct name with the difference that plants aren't offended, but it could cause that you are poisoned, use the wrong medicine, grow the wrong stuff or make bad policies or business ideas and waste time and money.
So, who gives a plant #species its name?
Well, technically, everybody can do it, but there are rules to it (called #nomenclature) and you need to make a convincing case that the plant you think is new and deserves a name is in fact significantly different from all plants known so far.
In order to do that, you need to know the plants that are related to the potential new plant and how they look like.
This is the point where collections of plant samples, so called #herbaria come into play.
#Herbaria are such collections. They store many many samples of usually dried and pressed plants. They are basically a #library of #plant #species.
Just like a #librarian, I need to keep order in the chaos, help scientists and visitors to get access or send material on loan. I also provide help to interpret old labels, and I update and reidentify the material.
This is where I work: the #herbarium at the #NaturalHistoryMuseum in London:
