Herbaria • Collections • Databases: The New York Botanical Garden: The Steere Herbarium

Sunday, March 18, 2012

The New York Botanical Garden: The Steere Herbarium

Barbara Thiers, Ph.D., Director of the The William and Lynda Steere Herbarium at the New York Botanical Garden, reveals the inner workings of this unique collection of over 7 million dried plant specimens.

A. C. Moore Herbarium (USCH)

The A. C. Moore Herbarium is an important part of the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of South Carolina (Columbia Campus). Founded in 1907 by Dr. Andrew Charles Moore, the original collection of dried plant specimens is now part of an ever growing collection. Total holdings are just over 100,000 specimens, making the A. C. Moore Herbarium the largest in the state of South Carolina. Researchers and visitors will find a diverse collection of vascular and nonvascular plant material primarily from the Southeastern United States and more specifically from South Carolina. Now over 100 years old, the A. C. Moore Herbarium continues to be an indispensable resource for botanical knowledge.

A Cumulative Checklist for the Lichen-forming, Lichenicolous and Allied Fungi of the US and Canada

Alabama Plant Atlas

The Alabama Plant Atlas is a joint effort by the Alabama Herbarium Consortium (AHC) and The University of West Alabama to provide users with a comprehensive searchable database of plants that occur in the state of Alabama. Alabama, with over 4,000 species of native or naturalized pteridophytes and seed plants, is the fifth most floristically diverse state in the United States. The Alabama Plant Atlas provides a source of information for each species including the distribution within the state using historical and recent data.

Atlas of Florida Vascular Plants

The Atlas of Florida Vascular Plants is a joint effort by the Institute for Systematic Botany, the University of South Florida and the Florida Center for Community Design + Research to provide users with a comprehensive searchable database of vascular plants in the State of Florida. Florida, with over 4,200 species of native or naturalized ferns and seed plants, is the third most floristically diverse state in the United States. The Atlas of Florida Vascular Plants provides a source of information for the distribution of plants within the state.

Central Michigan University Herbarium (CMC)

Colorado State University Herbarium

The Colorado State University Herbarium (CS) is the third largest collection of plants and the oldest herbarium in the southern Rocky Mountain region and has an excellent representation of the Colorado Flora. It serves as a regional center for plant systematic research and receives about four hundred visitors per year. The CSU Herbarium contains approximately 75,000 specimens of vascular plants, primarily from Colorado. It is from this collection that Harold D. Harrington, one of the former curators, compiled his well known Manual Of The Plants Of Colorado, published in 1954.

Flora of China Checklist

The Flora of China Checklist provides on-line access to information concerning the ferns and seed plants of China. The information includes floristic and nomenclatural data. The floristic data includes distribution, name status, and references to the Chinese-language Flora Reipublicae Popularis Sinicae [FRPS], the English-language Flora of China [FOC], and the FOC Illustration volumes. Synonymy follows the FOC (completed volumes). System links within the project will display information about the linked name, bibliographic record, specimen, and image; the drop down 'Choose Project' on the upper right, provides access to the current name in Tropicos and other projects treating the taxon. The information presented here represents the working Checklist database. Select a Family, genus or species from the lists at left to see information about that taxon. A search for a scientific name can also be made using the Name Search box at left to go directly to information gathered for that taxon. Support was provided by various annual grants from the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Starr Foundation, and the Stanley Smith Horticultural Trust.

Flora Mesoamericana

Flora Mesoamericana, la primera Flora regional a gran escala escrita en español, es un proyecto de colaboración entre el Missouri Botanical Garden , el Instituto de Biología de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), el Natural History Museum, Londres, y especialistas de todo el mundo. La Flora describe, por primera vez, todas las plantas vasculares que se encuentran en los estados del sureste de México (incluyendo la península de Yucatán) y en todas las repúblicas de Centroamérica. El proyecto publica sus resultados en esta versión de Internet (W3FM), así como también en volúmenes impresos. W3FM apareció por primera vez en Internet en 1994 en el servidor del Museo de Historia Natural. En la actualidad está disponible a través del servidor del Jardín Botánico de Missouri y fue convertida a una versión de tiempo real en octubre de 1997. La UNAM publicó el primer volumen impreso, Volumen 6: Alismataceae a Cyperaceae en marzo de 1994, el Volumen 1: Psilotaceae a Salviniaceae en noviembre de 1995, y el Volumen 4.1: Cucurbitaceae a Polemoniaceae en noviembre de 2009. Los volúmenes están en venta a través Publicaciones Científicas Missouri Botanical Garden Press del Jardín Botánico de Missouri, y en México, en el Instituto de Biología (UNAM).

Herbarium

A herbarium – sometimes known by the Anglicized term herbar – is a collection of preserved plant specimens. These specimens may be whole plants or plant parts: these will usually be in a dried form mounted on a sheet but, depending upon the material, may also be kept in alcohol or other preservative. The same term is often used in mycology to describe an equivalent collection of preserved fungi, otherwise known as a fungarium. The term can also refer to the building where the specimens are stored or to the scientific institute that not only stores but researches these specimens. The specimens in a herbarium are often used as reference material in describing plant taxa; some specimens may be types. A xylarium is a herbarium specialising in specimens of wood. A hortorium is one specialising in preserved specimens of cultivated plant. This channel was generated automatically by YouTube's video discovery system.

Integrated Digitized Biocollections (iDigBio)

The mission of iDigBio is to develop a national infrastructure that supports the vision of ADBC by overseeing implementation of standards and best practices for digitization; building and deploying a customized cloud computing environment for collections; recruiting and training personnel, including underserved groups; engaging the research community, collections community, citizen scientists, and the public through education and outreach activities; and planning for long-term sustainability of the national digitization effort.

Macroalgal Herbarium Portal

Macroalgae are the foundation of many marine, estuarine and freshwater benthic ecosystems and provide food, substrata and protection for a myriad of other aquatic organisms. Many species are sensitive to environmental change. The goal of the NSF funded Macroalgal Digitization Project is to image, database and georeference the macroalgal specimens in 49 herbaria from New England to Florida, to Hawaii and Guam. Data provided through this project portal will allow researchers to determine how macroalgal biodiversity and our aquatic ecosystems have changed over the past 150 years as a result of climate change, bioinvasions, and a wide range of human activity.

Michigan State University (MSU) Herbarium

Mycology Collections Portal

The Mycology Collections data Portal (MyCoPortal) is more than just a web site - it is a suite of user-friendly, web-based data access technologies to aid taxonomists, field biologists, ecologists, educators, and citizen scientists in the study of fungal diversity. The data are derived from a network of universities, botanical gardens, museums, and agencies that provide taxonomic, environmental, and specimen-based information. Using the Symbiota (http://symbiota.org) system of virtual online floras, these data are directly accessible to dynamically generate geo-referenced species checklists, distribution maps, and interactive identification keys, all linked with a rich collection of digital imagery documenting fungal diversity of North America.

SABONET

The Southern African Botanical Diversity Network - SABONET - is a GEF Project aimed at developing botany in southern Africa. The network connected and developed southern African herbaria, botanic gardens, botanists and other plant specialists through workshops, courses, and funding. SABONET also published a newsletter, SABONET News, and books in the SABONET Report Series with information on southern African plant biodiversity and rare and threatened plants, including checklists of the plants of Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

SABONET - Botswana

Four herbaria and one botanical garden in Botswana are linked by SABONET-Botswana. Three of the herbaria are situated in Gaborone, namely the National Herbarium (of Botswana) (GAB), the University of Botswana Herbarium (UCBG), and the Sebele Agricultural Herbarium (MAH). The fourth herbarium is the Peter Smith Herbarium (PSUB), which is attached to the Harry Oppenheimer Okavango Research Centre (HOORC) in Maun, close to the Okavango swamps. The recently established National Botanical Garden in Gaborone is also supported by SABONET. The herbarium collections of two of the four herbaria are currently being computerised using the PRECIS database (PRECIS = National Herbarium Pretoria (PRE), Computerised Information System), which has been provided by the National Botanical Institute of South Africa (NBI, now SANBI) under the auspices of SABONET. National collection trips to expand the herbarium collections are also being undertaken.

Society of Herbarium Curators

The Society of Herbarium Curators (SHC) is a forum for discussion, action and support for herbaria. The SHC is an umbrella organization aiming to unite herbaria across the nation and around the world. The purpose of the society shall be to promote and expand the role of herbaria in botanical research, teaching, and service to the community at large, to provide a forum for discussion and action on all issues confronting herbaria, and to extend its efforts and interject its influence toward the protection and preservation of endangered herbaria. The Society publishes a semiannual newsletter, The Vasculum.

South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI)

The South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) leads and coordinates research, and monitors and reports on the state of biodiversity in South Africa. The institute provides knowledge and information, gives planning and policy advice and pilots best-practice management models in partnership with stakeholders. SANBI engages in ecosystem restoration and rehabilitation, leads the human capital development strategy of the sector and manages the National Botanical Gardens as 'windows' to South Africa's biodiversity for enjoyment and education.

The C. V. Starr Virtual Herbarium

The C. V. Starr Virtual Herbarium, is the electronic gateway to the collections of the William and Lynda Steere Herbarium. The goals of the Virtual Herbarium are to make specimen data available electronically for use in biodiversity research projects; to reduce shipping of actual specimens for projects where digital representations will suffice for study; and to reunite data elements (e.g., photographs and drawings, manuscripts, published works, microscopic preparations, gene sequences) derived from a specimen with the catalog record for that specimen. The digital collections of the Virtual Herbarium, comprising approximately 1,300,000 herbarium specimens and 225,000 high-resolution specimen images, are updated daily as the Garden pursues the goal of digitizing all of its 7,300,000 plant and fungi specimens.

United States National Herbarium

The United States National Herbarium is a collection of five million preserved plant specimens housed in the Department of Botany at the National Museum of Natural History, which is part of the Smithsonian Institution. It represents about 8% of the plant collection resources of the United States and is one of the ten largest herbaria in the world. The herbarium was founded in 1848, when the first collections were accessioned from the United States Exploring Expedition, when botanists pressed approximately 50,000 specimens, representing 10,000 species of plants.

University of Arizona Herbarium

We are located in historic Herring Hall on the campus of the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona, USA. With over 400,000 specimens, ARIZ is the world's largest collection of plants from Arizona and Sonora, Mexico. These collections support a rich diversity of research projects by herbarium staff and university researchers. We also serve the general public, private organizations, and government agencies of all levels as a provider of information on the plants of Arizona and the Sonoran Desert region.

VSU Virtual Herbarium

Wisconsin State Herbarium

The University of Wisconsin-Madison Herbarium, founded in 1849, is a museum collection of dried, labeled plants of state, national and international importance, which is used extensively for taxonomic and ecological research, as well as for teaching and public service. It contains the world's largest collection of Wisconsin plants, about one-third of its 1,000,000 specimens having been collected within the state. Most of the world's floras are well represented, and the holdings from certain areas, such as the Upper Midwest, eastern North America and western Mexico, are widely recognized as resources of global significance.

Herbaria • Collections • Databases

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Sunday, March 18, 2012

The New York Botanical Garden: The Steere Herbarium

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