From Plant Press, Vol. 11, No. 3 from July 2008.
The project “Georeferencing Plants of the Guiana Shield: US Types,” available at <http://botany.si.edu/bdg/georeferencing.cfm>, displays in Google Earth and Google Maps the geographical location of the plant types housed in the US National Herbarium. These specimens were originally collected on the Guiana Shield (northern South America) often by the Biological Diversity of the Guiana Shield Program (BDG) of the Smithsonian Institution. The project was developed by Eduardo Garcia-Milagros, Vicki Funk, and Ellen Farr.
All discovered and described species on earth have an official name. In general, that name consists of a genus, a specific epithet, and the name of the person(s) who described it; all together these are called a species name. Usually each species name is tied to a specimen that is housed in a collection that is stored in a herbarium in a museum, garden or university. These specimens are called types. Naming of plants is governed by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature.
This Web site currently includes the type collections of plants collected on the Guiana Shield (in Guyana, Suriname, or French Guiana) and housed at the US National Herbarium (ca. 1400 specimens). Placemarks for the Venezuelan part of the Guiana Shield will be ready soon (ca. 1900 specimens); the state of Bolivar is expected to be available in June.
Users can view detailed information and images for the plant type specimens, display the specimens with coordinates on Google Maps, and download their Google Earth files. Google Earth must to be installed on the user’s computer to open the kml files. Some tips on using Google Earth are also available on the Web site.
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