A 19th-century herbarium was found in an old newspaper from a museum in Nerchinsk.

The staff of the Nerchinsk Museum of Local Lore discovered an ancient herbarium in the newspaper "Intermediary", published in 1842. Among the pages were dried flowers — iris and locust, the press service of the government of the Trans-Baikal Territory reports.

The publication was devoted to the issues of industry, economy and science. A significant part of the materials were published with translations from foreign technical journals. The museum's collections contain 59 issues of this newspaper for 1842.

The find recalls the popular tradition in the 19th century of drying plants between the pages of books, writes ChitaMedia news agency. The thick editions served as a natural press, allowing you to keep the shape and flowers, protecting them from the light.

As the museum noted, for romantic natures, such books were not so much a way to preserve plants as a memory of events and experiences dear to their hearts.

In addition to locusts and irises, several other dried plants were found in the newspaper, but they could not determine their type. Another surprise is the autograph of an unknown person, sealed with a blue pencil. There are two versions of what is depicted: these are the letters "LV" or, presumably, the surname Lavrov.

Earlier it was reported that a plant that had been considered extinct for almost 60 years was discovered in Australia. The discovery was made thanks to a random snapshot on the iNaturalist citizen science platform.