Vascular Plant Herbarium

Databasing and Georeferencing DES specimens, ASU Latin American Specimens

In September 2009, as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the ASU and Desert Botanical Garden (DES) Herbaria were awarded a National Science Foundation BRC grant. The goals of the grant are two-fold: to database, georeference, and image the holdings of the two herbaria (entire DES collection, Latin American specimens at ASU); and to expand the number of data providers in SEINet to include a broader regional scope. To increase the speed and efficiency of data entry, ASU developed SALIX (semi-automatic label information extraction system) which uses optical character recognition along with additional software to capture specimen label data (See SALIX). There were 3-7 student and/or staff jobs created by this grant, and the progress has been remarkable. We have completed almost all of the imaging of specimens, and are currently focused on editing, georeferencing and databasing the remainder.

The environmental research community including data providers such as ASU and other regional herbaria, have benefited greatly from SEINet/Symbiota. Recent BDI grants for programming and software development have provided the resources to enhance existing features (image library, specimen search, species lists, dynamic checklists, and identification keys). Additionally, user feedback from data providers, agency scientists, the scientific community, and interested public, is instrumental in advancing implementation of new ideas and applications.

Databasing and Georeferencing of Arizona Specimens

In collaboration with the herbaria at the University of Arizona and Northern Arizona University, the ASU Herbarium was awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation to database and georeference all Arizona collections in the three herbaria. This project began in July 2003, and was essentially completed in 2006, though new Arizona accessions are continually added to the database. As collections are digitized, they are immediately available and searchable through SEINet on the collections search page.

• Click here to see a list of families that are completely databased for ASU

Vascular Plants of Arizona Project (VPAP)

• The latest manual for Arizona, Arizona Flora, is more than forty years out-of-date and has no species descriptions. There is an urgent need for a new manual.
• Sample Treatment of Fagaceae
• Treatments published in the Journal of the Arizona/Nevada Academy of Science in JANUS and CANOTIA
• Treatments of families and genera in previously published volumes of JANUS are available for download at VPA Treatment dowloands

Various Arizona-based floras have been compiled through graduate student research at the ASU Herbarium. Checklists for many regional floras (e.g., Grand Canyon National Park, Seven Springs Recreation Area, Checklist of San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area; are available through SEINet.