This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Universities and biodiversity institutes have hidden treasures: their collections of pressed plant specimens. These plants have been flattened, dried and mounted on special cardboard sheets.
Some were collected centuries ago. They hold information about where species occur and how ecosystems have changed over time. Yet for many researchers and policymakers, that information remains invisible.
The collections are filed in cabinets, and the data are mostly accessible only if seen in person, one specimen at a time. This is the central challenge facing African herbaria today. Herbaria are libraries of the plant world, holding collections and botanical records.
Too few of these records are digitized, searchable or accessible online. That gap has real consequences for science, conservation and Africa's ability to make evidence-based decisions about its natural heritage. Botanical taxonomists like ourselves study herbarium specimens and live plants to explore and organize botanical diversity.
They generate data that inform other plant-related research, conservation priorities and biodiversity legislation. In a recent paper, we explained how digitization of herbarium specimens in South Africa and the western Indian Ocean island states (La Réunion, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mayotte, the Comoros and the Seychelles) makes access to collections easier while protecting specimens. Our research shows that digitization allows researchers, institutions and policymakers to share information and work together.
It reduces costly travel and specimen loans and supports assessments of whether species are becoming scarce. It also provides evidence for protected area planning, environmental authorizations and invasive species management. The plant specimens in herbaria are linked to information on species identity, collection date and location.
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