XVI International Botanical Congess

A DNA extraction protocol which generates PCR friendly template from small amounts of old and formalin-fixed herbarium specimens of red algae could greatly advance our understanding of algal systematics. We outline a procedure that was approximately 75% effective at isolating amplifiable nuclear and chloroplast DNA from older plants (as old as 1791) and formalinized material. The crucial ingredient was Proteinase K, which was added to the lysis buffer during sample incubation. The largest PCR product that we amplified was 330 bp in length. The use of this protocol to establish a correspondence between recent collections and identify critical material, such as type specimens, rare species, or fixed specimens are the most significant contributions reported in this paper.