Online herbaria or national flora: what is needed first?

摘要

Datar and Ghate1 aptly describe the need for online herbaria in India. In addition to housing plant collections, many herbaria have initiated computerized data information system to record and access the information on plant specimens, as well as to access information from other herbaria worldwide2. The initiative in India by Agharkar Herbarium (AHMA) deserves appreciation. Sasyabharthi, Sampada, Herbaceous Plants of Baroda, etc. are other efforts in this field and their status and limitations have already been reviewed3,4. In this context, the Botanical Survey of India (BSI) has come up with a thematic proposal for an online digital herbarium of the entire country3. But before working on the online herbarium, we must first complete our baseline data of floristic diversity of India in the form of a complete national flora.