 Background
Botanical Liaisons Executive Director, Trish Flaster, implemented one of the first herbaria in the herb industry in 1985. It was the importance of knowing what starting materials you had as part of your quality program in manufacturing that drove her insistence to have herbaria as part of good quality practices. Today, Botanical Liaisons is one of the few companies that provides botanical reference materials to manufacturers, regulatory agencies and academics. What are botanical reference materials? Botanical reference materials include a voucher specimen, a representative sample of the plant, often with an inflorescence, flower, pressed and preserved on archival paper. The label on the specimen informs the viewer of the date and location of the harvest of the voucher and can be tracked back to the collector. Accompanying the voucher is one pound of the economically valuable plant part of interest to the requestor. When is this useful? A voucher specimen can be used in a court of law to verify the starting material in the case of adverse reactions or other legal consumer questions. It is used as a reference in primary research, as part of standard operating procedures, as a marketing tool, and to educate staff, consumers, and customers.  How to obtain reference materials?
Because the shelf-life of many of the bioactives in plants are not readily known, specimens are collected upon request. They are not keep in storage, sorry, but this is the best we can offer you. Therefore, plants are collected fresh at traditional harvest times and dried throughout the season. They are collected by qualified botanists, specialist in their geographic region or by ethical wild harvesters. Wild harvesters' specimens are verified by botanical specialists. What do you receive? The materials are sent to you mounted on archival paper, labeled, and a record is keep in the Botanical Liaisons database. The bulk material is labeled with the voucher number and name of the plant, all within a plastic or cloth bag. If you chose not to receive the voucher, we can arrange for it to be housed in a botanical institution near your facility, or within a larger botanical Institution such as Missouri Botanical Garden. Training If you need training for employees we can provide training in botany, taxonomy, as well as herbarium establishment and maintenance. What plants are available? At this time we can provide plants from China, India, Africa, Europe, the US, and parts of Central and South America.
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