Don’t be tempted to collect more material than you really need. Keep in mind the size of your herbarium sheet. If a specimen is particularly large (e.g., a tree fern frond), it can be either folded to fit, or spread over two or more sheets.
Look at the plant and decide carefully which portions would most accurately represent it overall. Bear in mind such characters as:
- Characteristic vegetative features (leaf forms, stipules, ligules etc.)
- Reproductive structures (flowers, fruit etc.)
- Reproductive structures are often the most important characters used in plant identification.