‘Hidden time-capsule of UK biodiversity’ being unlocked
A “hidden” record of UK’s historic biodiversity including flowers picked two centuries ago with links to Charles Darwin is being digitised.
More than 10,000 dried and pressed specimens held at the Royal Agricultural University (RAU) herbarium in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, are being photographed and digitally catalogued to make them more accessible to researchers.
Described by RAU as a “time-capsule record of biodiversity in the UK”, researchers said the possibilities are endless, branching out into climate change, habitat management, genetics, and much more.
Dr Kelly Hemmings, from the RAU, said it will allow the herbarium to “really make a global impact in research”.
She added: “Until it is digitised, and the metadata collated, we have no way, other than manually sifting through the handwritten sheets, to know exactly what the collection holds, so this rich seam of data is effectively ‘hidden’ natural heritage.”
It will be included in a £155m national scheme to connect around a million specimens in collections across the UK.
Herbarium sheets are a way of preserving plants and flowers on paper and were first made in Italy in the 15th Century. If properly conserved, they can last for hundreds of years.
The herbarium at RAU, not only includes specimens from 1797, but many picked from in and around the Gloucestershire area.
Geologist Samuel Pickworth Woodward, who was a professor at the college in the 1800s and a correspondent of Charles Darwin, collected many of the plants and flowers.
