Plant Letters

RESULTS FROM THE FIRST PHASE OF THIS PROJECT

The database 'Plant Letters' makes available the searchable content of letters from the Botany Archive of the Department of Life Sciences of the University of Coimbra, transcribed by hundreds of citizen-scientists from all over the world, through the platform Zooniverse.
This documentation was produced between the 1870s and 1920s as part of the activity of the Institute, Herbarium and Botanic Garden of the University of Coimbra, with more than 1100 correspondents. Information can be explored through a free search box or thematic indexes.

Among other things, you will find:

• historical records of plants, distribution areas and abundance of species;
• records of biological material circulation (exchanges of plants and seeds);
• scientific processes of plant collection, classification, and taxonomy;
• data for reconstructing the contexts of herbarium specimens and museum objects in the university natural history collections;
• traces of the international networks of botanical knowledge production, including local assistants and indigenous knowledge.