I second this notion. To be honest, I have seen too many herbaria that wouldn’t add any value to knowledge of a local flora, so I am somewhat biased when it comes to this topic. But I have to add that those herbaria are not of a conservational concern, since they contain the most common plants that will grow around any corner.
But the question is “why?” … many plants are easily identified by photo, especially if you use the macro-function (as pointed out by @fffffffff above). You’ll get to depict stellate hair, stipulae, glands, coloration, you name it. The quality of the observation will remain, whereas a herbarized plant might loose all those features quickly.
Nowadays, the “new” reason for herbarization is genetic research. For all other reasons a digital camera will do, or even a smartphone. (Mind you, I am not talking about rainforest expeditions or the likes.)
Yes! Actually this is another very good reason for taking pictures instead of collecting …
Yes, but collecting samples for DNA extraction is quite a bit different. The idea that you can just collect a herbarium specimen and then later extract DNA from it is often faulty due to the break-down of the nucleic acids following collection. You have to know how to collect and store these samples to maximize preservation of the DNA until it can be analyzed. Some researchers go out with a dewar full of liquid nitrogen to shock-freeze samples and store them at -80 C after return to the lab. Some use in-the-field desiccation methods to inactive DNA-destroying enzymes in the plant material, or they bring a field kit with them and do the DNA extraction on site and store the isolated DNA in vials with pure ethanol for preservation until return to the lab. This is quite a bit different from collecting whole plants to press for a herbarium collection and takes a whole different way to prepare for sample collection and storage. (More details for those interested here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5345056/)
The idea that weedy grasses shouldn’t be in herbaria and provide no useful data is flawed, I feel. That’s because weedy, ubiquitous species are typically not collected, leading to gaps in knowledge. What exactly is “haphazard” collection too? I feel like my collection style could be interpreted as that.
An aside, but I also don’t like, as a rule, western collectors and researchers going overseas to collect species that aren’t their own. This sort of science is very colonial.
Western collectors going overseas to collect local species is now difficult, and bringing the stuff back is very difficult. Permits are needed and can be hard to get without local partnerships.
I think you are reading far too much into this topic than necessary. @stefadrian was simply stating that amateurs (of which I am one) may collect specimens without knowing the importance of such specimens. One of the reasons why I don’t collect.
‘Colonial’ collection is rare. I dislike that term, for personal reasons outside of this conversation.
This will be very different depending on the geographic region. Some areas have been thoroughly checked for decades like my homeplace. Being a botanist in Germany can be boring at times.
I’m on team take photos and dead stuff, unless you’re going to eat it or it’s some super noxious invasive. I expect most survey work to be conducted by drones that identify all visible species in a given area in real time within the next 10 years.
I think that’s ultimately a developmental phase though. If I can’t stop it, the next best thing I can do is help push past it to limit its duration, and, you know, experience the now. I also expect most people would have free access to the data collected, sort of ironically making them more connected to the quantitative aspects of the natural world than they currently are.