How to collect, store and decorate herbariums from leaves?

With the onset of autumn schoolchildren and their parents often go to the forest for a walk. And not just to enjoy the last warm days. Very often the goal of such weekends is to collect natural material. After all, the children will need to make herbariums from the leaves. Especially good for this is October, when all the foliage is painted in bright yellow and red. Correctly retaining such a "harvest", you can then long winter evenings to deal with its design. Or even make paintings or crafts from dried plants with their own hands.

Collection of materials for the herbarium

But first you need to choose the right foliage and flowers for drying. If they have too much moisture, they can become moldy or even rotten. And because the herbarium leaves permanently retain a presentable appearance, you need to know the rules for collecting the material.

1. "Hunting" for leaflets-flowers should be taken only on a dry and sunny day. Drying wet plants is much harder.

2. Choose from the fallen leaves you need only whole, undisturbed specimens. They must be dry.

3. To bring the future herbaria from the leaves to the house, it is advisable to take files and packages with you. It is better to add each sample to a separate folder, you can add it with a note about the place and time of collection.

Preparation of collected material

Now, when everything interesting in the forest is collected, you need to dry it and save it. There are several ways how to make a herbarium of leaves. They are applied depending on which plants were harvested and how they are planned to be used. The most popular method is drying under the press. The sheet is placed between two pieces of tracing paper or paper, and then placed in a book or under a small board. On top of this are several more impressive volumes. After 2 weeks, the herbarium from the leaves with your own hands will be ready. This technique is best suited for drying autumn leaves and small flowers.

The second method involves drying with an iron. First, the sheet should also be coated with paper, and then ironed with a warm iron until it dries completely. Compared with the first case, it significantly accelerates the preparation, but is not at all suitable for fragile flowers and thin leaves. In addition, under the influence of high temperature, the color of the material can change.

Another way allows you to keep all the beauty of fresh plants. To do this, the leaves or flowers are collected in bundles and suspended in a dark cool place "upside down" until completely dry. Thus, you can dry buds of roses, chamomile flowers and other twigs with flowers and fruits.

Making Herbarium

When all the leaves and flowers have dried, you can proceed with their design. This stage will probably take more than one evening. But then you can enjoy your work with pleasure. If the herbaria of leaves and flowers will be used as a guide for natural history, you can paste each copy on a separate sheet and put it in a file. Each such page must be supplemented with a memorable inscription with the name of the plant, time and place of its collection. It remains only to collect everything in a folder-folder.

And such plants can be used to make interesting crafts. By the way, in elementary school, children often engage in this in the lessons of labor. It can be beautifully decorated paintings, illustrations for fairy tales, small models of parks and squares, etc. Such pastime will perfectly brighten up any winter evening.