23 May 2013

NZ Virtual Herbarium

From Our Changing World, 9:34 pm on 23 May 2013

There are 17 herbaria in New Zealand, collections of dried plant specimens kept in dark, temperature-controlled rooms at different locations around the country. Now 11 herbaria have combined forces to create the New Zealand Virtual Herbarium, an electronic collection of the data that accompanies each specimen. Although it’s still a work in process you can access distribution records for over 700,000 plant specimens  - all from the comfort of your own computer.

For a guided tour of both a real and virtual herbarium Alison Ballance heads to Auckland Museum to meet curator of botany Ewen Cameron.

New Zealand’s three largest herbariums - Auckland Museum, Te Papa and Landcare Research - are the major partners in the Virtual Herbarium, which is based on the Australian Virtual Herbarium and uses its platform. In the future Ewen hopes that high-quality scans and field photographs that now form part of Auckland Museum’s own electronic database will also be accessible from the NZ Virtual Herbarium.

Get the RNZ app

for easy access to all your favourite programmes

Subscribe to Our Changing World

Podcast (MP3) Oggcast (Vorbis)