Help NYBG solve history’s botanical mysteries! New Labs Expedition: “US State Spotter”

The New York Botanical Garden Herbarium is pleased to launch its latest Notes From Nature project, “US State Spotter”, designed to uncover occurrence data from some of our oldest specimens from North America. As a participant, your focused mission is to help identify the correct US State where each plant specimen was found in the wild by interpreting clues from the original collection label.

This new expedition features a simplified workflow with easy-to-follow instructions, and should be a great introduction for those who have never tried interpreting scientific specimens before. That’s not to say this expedition will be easy! We suspect even veteran transcribers will enjoy a surprising challenge, since most specimens we are targeting feature old and handwritten collection labels. This is no coincidence, since we developed “US State Spotter” specifically to address persistent gaps in the sampling of older collections by crowdsourcing projects.

In the spirit of discovery, I hope you’ll help us classify these cryptic specimens so we can connect researchers to essential biodiversity data and build even more interesting and comprehensive virtual expeditions for the citizen science community!

Click here to join expedition Part 4 “Reclusive Rosaceae” More State Spotter expeditions coming soon!

— Charles Zimmerman, New York Botanical Garden Herbarium, czimmerman@nybg.org