IU Completes Digitization Of 160K Preserved Plant Specimens

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) — Indiana University has wrapped up a 5-year project that digitized its collection of more than 160,000 preserved plant specimens.

The project launched in 2014 now provides online access to the IU Herbarium's complete plant collection, including more than 72,000 specimens of Indiana flora.

The herbarium's director, Eric Knox, says digital photographs were obtained of the collection's plant specimens. Those images and other data are now available to researchers around the globe.

Knox calls the Bloomington campus' digitized collection "a gift to the people of Indiana."

The IU Herbarium was founded in 1885. Its largest single collection is the preserved plant samples of Indiana's first state forester and his wife, Charles and Stella Deam.

Many other specimens hailing from 85 countries joined the collection over the decades.