Dried treasures: discovering plants in the online herbarium

Berlin The Berlin Botanical Garden, which belongs to Freie Universität Berlin, is responsible for the new Virtual Herbarium Germany. Königsfarn by Alexander von Humboldt The website shows, among other things, high-resolution photos of 300,000 historical documents, i.e. of dried, flat-pressed plants on sheets of paper with location information and other essential information. Among them are also originals by Carl Ludwig Willdenow or by Alexander von Humboldt. A Humboldt specimen, for example, is a now endangered and endangered form of the royal fern, which the researcher collected at the time near Schloss Tegel, the Berlin family seat of the Humboldts. A world map full of finds The many other finds scattered all over the world, including species described botanically for the first time, can also be explored or selected via a world map. The 22 collections include the Herbarium Senckenbergianum Frankfurt/Main, the Herbarium Haussknecht of the University of Jena, the Leiner Herbarium Konstanz or the Alfred Wegener Institute Bremerhaven. According to the Botanischer Garten Berlin, the digital networking of the collection is intended to bring new insights into global biodiversity and its development. The goal is therefore the complete digitization of all herbariums in this country.