Digitizing type specimens in The National Herbarium of ETH

1. DIGITAL RESOURCES
Plant Specimens and other Materials
visit http://www.plants.jstor.org
Global Plants
The largest of its kind, Global Plants is a community-contributed database where worldwide herbaria can share their plant type specimens, experts can determine and update naming structures, students can discover and learn about plants in context, and a record of plant life
can be preserved for future generations.
About the Content: Global Plants contains the contributed collections of more than 300 herbaria from around the globe. Herbaria preserve plant type specimens that are used for the study of botany, ecology, and other plant science disciplines. Plant type specimens are in
great demand for scientific study because of their pivotal role as original vouchers of nomenclature. They also act as a historical record of changes in various flora.
There are nearly two million high-resolution type specimens currently in the Global Plants database, and this number will continue to grow. They have been hand-selected and meticulously digitized by partner herbaria with generous support from The Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation.
Researchers and students can also access reference works and primary sources—such as collectors’ correspondence and diaries, paintings, drawings, and photographs—contributed by partners. Highlights include reference works and books such as The Useful Plants of
West Tropical Africa and Flowering Plants of South Africa; illustrations from Curtis's Botanical Magazine; and Kew’s Directors' Correspondence comprising hand-written letters and memorandum from the senior staff of Kew from 1841 to 1928.
Access: Institutions can gain access to Global Plants through an annual access fee. Through this fee, we are able to sustain, maintain, and improve the database. To learn more, visit about.jstor.org/global-plants.
The National Herbarium was established in 1959 and began with a base of 6000 specimens collected by its first administrator, Dr. H. F. Mooney. Since its founding, the herbarium has always been a part of Addis Ababa University's Department of Biology. By 1980, the
herbarium contained approximately 16 000 specimens. In that year, the Swedish Agency for Research Cooperation with Developing Countries (SAREC) started supporting the Ethiopian Flora Project, and the National Herbarium research agenda became firmly established.
As a result, the number of collections has steadily increased and there are now about 85 000 collections housed in the National Herbarium, including approximately 400 type specimens from Ethiopia and Eritrea.
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