<
https://theconversation.com/thousands-of-our-native-plants-have-no-public-photographs-available-heres-why-that-matters-199100>
"For hundreds of years, botanists have collected plants to describe species and
keep in herbaria across the world. But while physical plant specimens are
irreplaceable, photographs of plants are also an invaluable resource for
botanical research, conservation and education.
Photographs of plants capture information that can be lost from dead, dried
plants, such as flower colour. They also provide ecological context and form
the cornerstone of many field guides and education resources.
All plant species known to science have samples preserved in at least one
herbarium. Under the scientific rules for naming species, a species is not
recognised unless there is at least one specimen officially stored in a
collection somewhere in the world.
Unfortunately, and perhaps surprisingly, many plants have never been
photographed in the field. Just 53% of the 125,000 known plant species in the
Americas have field photographs in major online databases.
Given almost 40% of the world’s plant species are threatened with extinction,
there’s a strong impetus to photograph as many of these as possible before they
disappear forever. Without photographs of these species in the field, many
could go extinct without us even realising."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
