botany Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek w ...

, a virtual herbarium is a

herbarium A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant specimens and associated data used for scientific study. The specimens may be whole plants or plant parts; these will usually be in dried form mounted on a sheet of paper (called ...

in a digitized form. That is, it concerns a collection of

digital image A digital image is an image composed of picture elements, also known as ''pixels'', each with ''finite'', '' discrete quantities'' of numeric representation for its intensity or gray level that is an output from its two-dimensional functions ...

s of preserved

plant Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclud ...

s or plant parts. Virtual herbaria often are established to improve availability of specimens to a wider audience. However, there are digital herbaria that are not suitable for internet access because of the high resolution of scans and resulting large file sizes (several hundred megabytes per file). Additional information about each specimen, such as the location, the collector, and the botanical name are attached to every specimen. Frequently, further details such as related species and growth requirements are mentioned.

Specimen imaging

The standard hardware used for herbarium specimen imaging is the "HerbScan" scanner. It is an inverted flat-bed scanner which raises the specimen up to the scanning surface. This technology was developed because it is standard practice to never turn a herbarium specimen upside-down. Alternatively, some herbaria employ a flat-bed book scanner or a

copy stand In photography, a copy stand is a device used to copy images and/or text with a camera. The stand consists of a board onto which the media is placed and an apparatus allowing the camera to be mounted parallel to it, usually with an adjustable heigh ...

to achieve the same effect. A small

color chart A color chart or color reference card is a flat, physical object that has many different color samples present. They can be available as a single-page chart, or in the form of swatchbooks or color-matching fans. Typically there are two diffe ...

and a ruler must be included on a herbarium sheet when it is imaged. The

JSTOR JSTOR (; short for ''Journal Storage'') is a digital library founded in 1995 in New York City. Originally containing digitized back issues of academic journals, it now encompasses books and other primary sources as well as current issues of j ...

Plant Science requires that the ruler bears the herbarium name and logo, and that a

ColorChecker File:CIE1931xy_ColorChecker_SMIL.svg, 300px, Nominal chromaticities of ColorChecker patches in the CIE 1931 xy chromaticity diagram (in thSVG version hover over a color swatch to highlight it; click it to select and deselect it) defaul The Col ...

chart is used for any specimens to be contributed to the Global Plants Initiative (GPI).

Uses

Virtual herbaria are established in part to increase the longevity of specimens. Major herbaria participate in international loan programs, where a researcher can request specimens to be shipped in for study. This shipping contributes to the wear and tear of specimens. If, however, digital images are available, images of the specimens can be sent electronically. These images may be a sufficient substitute for the specimens themselves, or alternatively, the researcher can use the images to "preview" the specimens, to which ones should be sent out for further study. This process cuts down on the shipping, and thus the wear and tear of the specimens, as well as the wait times associated with shipping. Virtual herbaria can also be used to increase public awareness of herbaria. Some herbaria make their specimen databases publicly available on the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

. Digital images of specimens can be added to these databases to allow the public to further engage with the material. Some herbaria also capitalize on their images by selling herbarium prints and greeting cards featuring particularly attractive specimens.

Five task clusters for digitization

* pre-digitization curation and staging * specimen image capture * specimen image processing * electronic data capture, and * georeferencing specimen data

External links

Indian Virtual Herbarium

Tropicos (Missouri Botanical Garden)

Europeana Collections
(High quality scans of the collections of several important European herbaria such as Kew)
Kew Herbarium Catalogue

Australia's Virtual Herbarium

United States Virtual Herbarium

Louisiana State University Virtual Herbarium

Botanic Garden Meise Virtual Herbarium

University of Connecticut Virtual Herbarium

Utah Valley University Virtual Herbarium

Virtual Herbarium of the Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin-Dahlem, Freie Universität Berlin

The Virtual Herbarium at The New York Botanical Garden

JSTOR Plant Science

Reflora Virtual Herbarium

Moscow Digital Herbarium: 786K scans online

Digital Herbarium of Angiospermic Plants of Western Ghat Regions of Maharashtra

Digital Herbarium of Selected Indian Medicinal Plants

Digital Flora of Karnataka

BRIT Virtual Herbarium

References

{{Reflist Herbaria *Virtual herbarium

Specimen imaging

Uses

Five task clusters for digitization

See also

External links

References