Kolkata , July 01,2022

 

“Indian Virtual Herbarium" web portal inaugurated by Honorable Cabinet minister Shri Bhupender Yadav ‘Botanical Survey of India has developed the Country’s largest online herbarium database (https://ivh.bsi.gov.in) under the framework of ' Ajadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’ and ‘Digital India’. Its main goal is to provide the complete information of herbarium specimens about floral diversity of India and other countries stored in the cabinet of herbarium building through online access which will be valuable and beneficial for global plant research.

At present, the digital herbarium of Botanical Survey of India has four categories: Cryptogams type specimens, Cryptogams general specimens, Phanerogams type specimens and Phanerogams general specimens. About 52% our type specimens are from foreign and collected from 82 countries of the World during British Era.

This portal includes about one lakh images of herbarium specimens with metadata comprising all digitized images of type specimens, Wallich specimens, Orchid specimens and other specimens. The database created is the largest storage of information about plants diversity in India. It could be used not only by taxonomists, naturalist, ecologist, molecular biologist, amateur botanist, etc.. The herbarium specimens of the Botanical Survey of India have been digitized by its own staffs.

Meantime we are working within the Botanical Survey of India, but in the future we can extend and include herbarium specimens of other Institutes and University herbaria to bring herbarium database of entire India on single platform.

The Minister also inaugurated the Aquatic Plant Section of the Botanic Garden on this occasion and visited the historic garden. Shri A.A.Mou, the Director, BSI and other high-ranking officials were also present on this occasion.

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