As a plant taxonomist, most of my work involves determining how
many species are in a particular genus of flowering plants, how
they are related to one another, and what the correct scientific
names for those species are. To do this, I gather and analyze
data from a number of sources, including genetics, chromosomes,
ecology, geography, and morphology. My colleague Leon Perrie has
blogged previously about generating genetic data, including
extracting DNA and analyzing microsatellite markers for
Pseudopanax species, and detecting differences in DNA sequence
data for maidenhair fern species. Here I will show how I go
about collecting morphological data from herbarium specimens for
taxonomic research. The first step of deciding which characters
or traits to measure and observe is key. This will vary
depending on the particular plant group being studied, and can
be an involved process (meaning, probably the subject of another
blog!). Some examples of characters commonly used are leaf
length and width, presence an