Part of my role as Collection Manager at Te Papa herbarium is
contributing to the further development of our dried plant
collection. At the herbarium we are interested in collecting
indigenous and naturalised New Zealand plant species for future
scientific investigation and as an historical record. One of our
recent collection development projects focused on collecting as
many species as possible in a specific coastal plant community,
Hue te Taka in Wellington. One of the species growing here is
the naturalised succulent, Cotyledon orbiculata. This species is
a relatively common coastal plant, at certain localities, along
the east coast of New Zealand. To preserve their specific
characteristics properly, succulents take a bit more thought and
time to prepare as a herbarium specimen than typical flowering
plant specimens. However, this is probably one of the easiest
succulent species to prepare. While still fresh, I was able to
longitudinally section the flower stem and scoop out the flesh.
I then cut the leav