Selby Botanical Gardens has joined the Global Plants Initiative, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, with aims to digitize and make available for students and researchers over 2 million records of plant type specimens from around the world. The GPI network currently includes more than 166 partner herbaria representing almost 60 countries. The output of GPI is presented through JSTOR Plant Science, an online environment that brings together content, tools, and people interested in plant science. The GPI not only repatriates data back to countries from which the specimens originated; within a fraction of time and cost it would take to visit herbaria or loan specimens, type specimen data are made available to a wider audience.
Photo Credit: Bruce Holst