Indiana University’s Herbarium is calling on Hoosiers throughout Indiana to take photos of their local native plants. In 2019 the Herbarium completed a digitization project of their collection. This project made public over 160,000 plant specimens allowing people to learn more about plants around the world with an emphasis on Indiana. You can access the database at the Consortium of Midwest Herbaria.
With over 2,700 plant species in Indiana and many of them do not have pictures on the database. The Herbarium is working to make the database more visual by adding photos of the living plants rather than just the herbarium specimen. This is why they are calling people from around Indiana to take pictures of their local plant species.
IU Herbarium Director Eric Knox talks about the reason behind this scavenger hunt.
The Herbarium has also made different lists of species to document based on Indiana’s different regions. This makes it easier for people to know what to look for so they don’t end up looking for something that doesn’t actually grow in their area.
These photos will help a significant amount with the golden key feature on the database. The golden key is a tool that anyone can use and it allows people to identify plants based on their features. For example, if somebody finds a plant in the woods and they want to know what it is they can use this tool by inputting what the features of the plant are it will show you the possibilities of what it is. Adding photos will make it easier for people to figure out what the plant is that they are trying to identify because they will be able to see if the picture looks like the plant they are curious about.
If you have previously taken photos of Indiana’s plants the Herbarium is also accepting photos that have been taken in the past. You can submit your photos here. In order to submit the photos they ask that you put them in a zip folder, but if you don’t know how to do that they have provided instructions on the submission website.
Along with the photos they are asking that people also collect information about where and when it was collected. While this information is not necessary for a photo to be featured on the database this information will allow it to be a data point that can be used for future research on Indiana’s plants.
Documenting Indiana’s plants is not a recent development. Indiana has a rich history of flora collection. Starting with Charles Deam in the early 1900’s. Deam was an avid collector of Indianas flora and his collection is now held at the IU Herbarium.
Knox talks about how Deam got into plant collecting and how his collection ended up at IU.
From Deam to present day citizen scientists, documenting Indiana’s plants has provided a good reason for Hoosiers to get outside and enjoy Indiana’s wilderness.
