Some 700 plants occur in the wild in Barbados, outside of cultivation, while in the Lesser Antilles as a whole this number approaches 3,000. It is important that you appreciate this diversity and a first step in doing this is to recognise a few major families. Using the booklet "Flowering Plant Families of Barbados" select 5 families. Each student will then collect 25 plants in flower belonging to these 5 families. You will dry these in a plant press designated to your group. When dry, mount the plants on individual sheets of white paper providing the following information in the bottom right hand corner:

1.    Scientific name of plant (if known)
2.    Common name(s) of plant (if any)
3.    Date of collection
4.    Site of collection
5.    Habitat
6.    Collector

The object of this exercise is to familiarise you with flowering plant families - not simply to learn scientific names of plants. Consult Carrington (1993) Wild Plants of Barbados for help in identifying the plants. This personal herbarium will be returned to you.

OBJECTIVES: 25 dried mounted plants representing 5 families.