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Botanical libraries | Botany resources | Information about plants

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Botanical libraries

Bibliotheca Antiqua (Aboca Museum)
Hundreds of herbals and other classic botanical texts printed from the 16th century through the beginning of the 20th century. The books pertain to Health and in particular the properties of medicinal plants. A search engine allows detailed searches by keyword, page or plate, or you can browse using the subject, title or author indexes. [Italian].

Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL)
A consortium of natural history museum libraries, botanical libraries, and research institutions digitizing the published literature of biodiversity. "The participating libraries have over two million volumes of biodiversity literature collected over 200 years to support the work of scientists, researchers, and students in their home institutions and throughout the world. The 10 member libraries of the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) members now have over 1.124 million pages of key taxonomic literature available on the Web.

Botanical and Cultural Images of Eastern Asia, 1907-1927 : [plant collecting expeditions of the early 20th century] (Arnold Arboretum Horticultural Library, Harvard University)
This online exhibition contains over four thousand botanical and cultural images of Eastern Asia by plant collectors John George Jack (1861–1949), Ernest Henry Wilson (1876-1930), Frank Nicholas Meyer (1875-1918), William Purdom (1880–1921), Joseph Hers (1884–1965), and Joseph Charles Francis Rock (1884–1962). Short illustrated biographical essays on each of the plant hunters is included here. Search the image database by photographer, subject or plant name using the comprehensive search form. There are also four themed "What They Saw" photography galleries - 'Magnificent Trees'; 'Buildings and Bridges'; 'Daily Life'; and 'Landscapes' for browsing.

Botanicus.org (Missouri Botanical Garden Library)
A freely accessible Web-based encyclopedia of digitized 18th and 19th century botanical literature focusing primarily on beautifully illustrated volumes from the library's rare book collection. Browse the collection by author, title and subject.

Current books on gardening and botany (Chicago Botanic Garden)
Internet-only journal reviewing new books and other media about gardening, horticulture, and botany. Reviews are primarily written by staff of the Chicago Botanic Garden. This page gives access to the most recent issues with a link to the Current Books Archive starting with Volume 1 (1999).

Cultivating Canadian Gardens : The History of Gardening in Canada / Cultiver Son Jardin au Canada: L'Histoire du Jardinage au Canada (National Library of Canada)
This online exhibition tells the story of the development of gardening in Canada through the books, periodicals, and printed materials collected, for the most part, by the National Library of Canada. It begins with the earliest recorded information on the plantings of the indigenous Huron people who had been tending their crops long before Europeans arrived in North America, and concludes with a brief look at the flood of printed material now available across the country. Topics featured include landscape architecture, railway station gardening, gardening in schools, horticultural societies and garden clubs, experimental farms and seed nurseries, botanical gardens and arboreta, heritage seeds and gardening. Includes a bibliography and photographs by Beth Powning. [English and French].

Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries, Inc. (CBHL)
This site contains a partial list of Web sites of member libraries as well as free access to previous newsletters with regular features that include book reviews, columns on Web resources and on preservation and conservation. Each newsletter will open as an Adobe Acrobat PDF file so it is necessary to have the Adobe Acrobat Reader installed.

Digital Library of the Real Jardín Botánico of Madrid (Royal Botanic Garden of Madrid)
This digital library provides facsimile images from botanical books pertaining to flora of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain, Portugal), Balearic Islands, Canary Islands, Europe, Latin America and the Philippines.

Directory of botanists, plantsmen, landscapers, gardeners and writers of note
Alphabetical directory of well-known botanists, plantsmen, landscapers, gardeners and writers is hosted on the Internet by Sisley Garden Tours. The people described in the directory are searchable by initial letter (of their surname). A short biography is given for each person, with links to the gardens they have worked on in many cases.

European Botanical and Horticultural Libraries Group (EBHL)
The main resource here is a directory of member libraries, with members listed alphabetically by country. “Europe” is interpreted in the widest sense to include countries both within and outside the European Union (EU). A meetings section details past and forthcoming meetings, with minutes and photographs from the group's last three annual meetings. [English, French].

Gallica : la bibliothèque numérique (Bibliothèque Nationale de France)
Gallica is part of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France's electronic text project providing access to the full-text of historical published works, archives and images covering French history from the middle ages to the 19th century. Search or browse for texts in a number of ways including an A-Z listing of authors. Texts are available in Adobe Acrobat PDF format so to access them it is necessary to have the Adobe Acrobat Reader installed. The site is in French only but includes a small number of texts in other languages.

Garden Archeology (Society for Garden Archaeology)
Learn about the archaeology of gardens. The Society for Garden Archaeology's mission is to serve as a center for an emerging global community of scholars devoted to the archaeological investigation of gardens and designed landscapes.

Gardening Digital Library (The Digital Librarian)
A librarian's choice of the best of the Web with links to hundreds of gardening sites and digital resources.

Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation
Part of Carnegie Mellon University, the Division documents the history of botany and all aspects of plant sciences by acquiring and maintaining authoritative collections of books, plant images, manuscripts, portraits and data files. This site is available both in graphic and text form.

Online Neo-Latin Texts (University of Birmingham)
This site contains a bibliography of neo-Latin texts written during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries freely available on the Web with hyperlinks. The hypertext editions used are prepared specifically for the online library by Professor Dana Sutton of the University of California.

Rare books from the Missouri Botanical Garden library
This site features 131 digitised volumes from the Rare Book collection at the Missouri Botanical Garden (MBG) library. Browse the collection by title, author or illustration. The search engine searches for the common name or scientific name of each plant represented in an illustration.

Register of original botanical art (Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation)
This register aims to record the location of original botanical paintings and drawings held in public collections around the world. You can search for artworks by artist, institution or title of artwork. Additional information on the site includes a map of world regions and state abbreviations applicable to the US that are used in the database.

The Tulip Book of P. Cos
The Tulip Book of P. Cos published in The Netherlands in 1637 is one of the rarest books on old tulips in the world. The tulip book is the manuscript nursery catalogue of nurseryman P. Cos of Haarlem. This web site includes all of the original illustrations and a small number of other flowers which are all exquisite.

Botany resources

Botanical illustration resources (Western Washington University)
A guide to selected hardcopy and Internet resources relating to botanical art for illustrators, historians, and collectors.

Botany online : the Internet hypertextbook = Botanik online (University of Hamburg)
This impressive site comprises an online botany textbook, derived in part from Botanik by Peter von Sengbusch (McGraw Hill Book Company, 1989). Coverage includes taxonomy, anatomy, biochemistry, genetics, evolution and plant-microbe interactions. Factual information is supplemented by numerous pictures, references, a dictionary and an extensive links section. Originally written in German and now being translated into English, the complete site is currently only available in German. This is an ongoing project and suggestions for additions and improvements are requested. This resource will be of particular interest to botany undergraduates. [German, English]

eFloras.org
Online access to a series of floras, tree and moss databases, checklists, keys, and image galleries for many ongoing floristic projects in Chile, China, North America, Pakistan, the Andes of Ecuador and other regions of the world. The searchable databases provide primary resources on botanical publications, specimens and botanists.

electronic Plant Information Centre (ePic) (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew)
This site provides a single point of search for plant information across all Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew's databases on the Internet including plant names, bibliographies, species and specimen data.

Flora Brasiliensis (Centro de Referência em Informação Ambiental, CRIA)
An online information system about Brazil's flora, using Martius' Flora brasiliensis - the largest flora ever published - with high resolution digitized images of the plates as a base.

Guide to the plant species descriptions published in seed lists from Botanic Gardens for the period 1800 - 1900 (National Herbarium Nederland)
Searchable database for the history of horticulture and the study of botanical nomenclature. The ongoing project aims to make available the original descriptions with the title page of the seed list and its date of publication or an estimate thereof, and the current nomenclatural status of these names (but not their present taxonomic identity). Created by Cees Lut in cooperation with Jan Frits Veldkamp, National Herbarium Nederland

Index to American Botanical Literature (New York Botanical Garden)
The index, first published in print in 1886 is now available in an electronic format that includes entries published in the index since 1996. The index is a searchable database and can be searched by author, title, keywords, category, journal title or book title. America is defined for this purpose as encompassing land and marine areas from Greenland to Antarctica.

Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS)
Authoritative taxonomic information on plants, animals, fungi, and microbes. The ITIS database contains the names of species found in North America and is searchable by common name, scientific name or taxonomic serial number. The returned data includes name(s), synonym(s), author(s) and hierarchical position in a taxonomic tree. The data can be downloaded free of charge. The advanced search facility allows you to create a customised report containing only information on the taxa you requested. Records retrieved provide an entire classification (from kingdom to species) for the queried item. The site also includes background information on the project and details of the database structure. ITIS, a project of several agencies, is hosted by the US Department of Agriculture.

International Plant Names Index (IPNI) (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew / Harvard University Herbaria / Australian National Herbarium)
The standard reference database for plant nomenclature - Latin names, synonyms, authors, and first publications of species names. "Its goal is to eliminate the need for repeated reference to primary sources for basic bibliographic information about plant names. The data are freely available and are gradually being standardized and checked."

Internet Directory for Botany (IDB)
An index with links to thousands of botanical websites available on the Internet including plant checklists, international plant organizations, botanical gardens and arboreta, and botanical research institutes.

Kew Bibliographic Databases (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew)
Combined searching tool giving you access to three major bibliographic databases: KR - The Kew Record of Taxonomic Literature, PMBD - the Plant Micromorphological Bibliographic Database and EBBD - the Economic Botany Bibliographic Database. Non-registered users can do simple searches retrieving a limited number of references, but registered users can access much larger number of references at a time, download selected references and save searches. Registration is free. A FAQ page is provided on the website.

Nature Serve
Scientific data on endangered species and threatened ecosystems with an emphasis on North and Latin America and the Caribbean. Resources available include the Natural Heritage Network Directory, a heritage library of full-text publications to download, animal and ecology data files, and an encyclopedia of species and ecological communities in Canada and the United States called NatureServe Explorer, and information from the Natural Heritage Central Databases (NHCD) maintained by the Association. Local program sections for the United States, Canada and Latin America are also available. NatureServe, an independent nonprofit USA organisation, was created in collaboration with the Natural Heritage Network and The Nature Conservancy, and is dedicated to protecting the diversity of life on Earth. The introduction is also available in Spanish.

Species 2000 (Indexing the world's known Species)
"Species 2000 has the objective of enumerating all known species of organisms on Earth (animals, plants, fungi and microbes) as the baseline dataset for studies of global biodiversity."

World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew)
This checklist gives you information on the accepted scientific names and synonyms of selected plant families.

Information about plants

Also see Plant images online and Plant societies and organisations

African flowering plants database (Conservatoire et Jardin botaniques de la Ville de Genève)
This database currently comprises of 154,950 names of flowering plants with their nomenclatural statuts. Data capture, edition and broadcast are the product of a collaboration between the South African National Biodiversity Institute, the Conservatoire et Jardin botaniques de la Ville de Genève and Tela Botanica. You can serach the database by complete name, including authors or by plant family Information on data, standards, processes or maps. [English, French].

American Orchid Society
Directories for locating and cultivating orchids.

American Public Gardens Association (APGA)
A directory of member gardens throughout the United States. The Public Garden search engine can be searched by, name, location, type of institution, programmes and horticultural features.

Bromeliad Society International
The BSI registers cultivars, shares a vast image collection, seeds, research and gardening tips for those interested in plants of the pineapple family.

Cacti and other Succulents (by Andrea and Friedrich A. Lohmueller)
Links to websites and homepages about cacti and succulent plants, cacti nurseries and cacti societies.

Canadian Poisonous plants information system (Government of Canada, Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada, Biodiversity Research)
This online resource provides data on plant species whether native, introduced or cultivated, that can poison 'livestock, pets and humans'. The search engine provides information on plant names, distribution, toxic parts, toxic chemicals and symptoms of poisoning as well as two alphabetical listings of all the poisonous plants in the information system, accessible by botanical or common name. Links to a number of other poisonous plant sites are also made available. [English, French].
Also see Poisonous Plants (Cornell University).

Celebrating Wildflowers (United States Forest Service)
This site is dedicated to the enjoyment of the thousands of wildflowers growing on U.S. national forests and grasslands, and to educating the public about the many values of native plants and their conservation. The site has sections on News and Events, Regions (with an interactive map giving events and viewing areas), Teacher resources, Pollinators, Invasive plants and Rare plants. There are also links to related organisations. Built with the help of botanists, specialists, and other contributors from across the country there is a wealth of educational and recreational resources here.
Also see Wildflowers in Bloom (Texas Agricultural Extension Service and Wildseed Farms).

Center for Aquatic and Invasive Plants (University of Florida)
Nearly 500 plants described and photographed.

eNature: Native Gardening and Invasive Plants Guides
American regional guide to learning about native garden plants, including native plant lists, natural landscapes, preserving and restoring native communities, and gardening to attract wildlife.

Ferns of the Canberra Region, Australia (David Nicholls)
This site provides an easy-to-follow guide to the wild ferns and fern allies found in the Canberra region of southeastern Australia. The guide includes descriptions of 23 species, each with an image, details of habitat and distribution in Australia. The guide also covers fern expeditions, ferns as ecological indicators, growing ferns from spores, and links to related sites. If you are planning a photographic safari in this region this is a good site to visit before leaving home.

Find My Roses
An online guide to over 31,000 cultivars and their growers. Search options include rose name, words/phrases, colour, bloom and fragrance. There are also lists of roses, shows, gardens, organisations, publications, events, FAQ's and a glossary.
Also see Old Garden Roses and Beyond (Paul Barden).

Fruits of warm climates (Julia F. Morton)
Fruits of warm climates is the full text by Julia F. Morton published in 1987. Botanical and horticultural information about a wide range of tropical fruit-bearing plants is presented here. An extensive bibliography is included. The full text was published online by the Center for New Crops and Plant Products at Purdue University.

GardenWeb : the Internet's garden community
Based in the USA, GardenWeb serves the international gardening community with garden forums, articles on gardening, directories of nurseries, gardens and gardening organizations, a botanical glossary, an events calendar and a plant database.

Great Plant Picks for the Northwest (Elisabeth Carey Miller Botanical Garden, Washington)
The Great Plant Picks program is a plant awards program designed to help the home gardener living in the North American maritime Pacific Northwest identify foolproof plants for their garden. The program is targeted at gardeners north of Eugene, Oregon; southern British Columbia; and west of the Cascade Mountains.

History of Horticulture
A brief history of important figures in horticulture from the past two thousand years developed from an outline that was distributed to students in Ohio State University Professor Freeman S. Howlett's course titled "The History and Literature of Horticulture: From Earliest Times to the Present," taught in 1968.

Index of Mosses Database (W³MOST) (Missouri Botanical Garden)
"MOST is the moss data base, MOSs TROPICOS, at the Missouri Botanical Garden. MOST currently contains information on over 90,000 bryophyte names, a bibliography of 16,000 titles, and almost 37,000 specimen records." Downloads of names from the the Index of Mosses data are available under Bryophyte Names Authority List.

International Flower Bulb Centre, Hillegom, The Netherlands
This site is a source of news, photographs, and technical information on flower bulbs and bulb flowers.

International Carnivorous Plant Society
Species descriptions, cultivars, and photographs.

Introduction to Lichens (UC Berkeley)
Basic guide to lichenology.

Introduction to the Fungi (UC Berkeley)
Basic introduction to the world of mycology.

IUCN Redlist of Threatened Species (International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources)
Authoritative listings of threatened and endangered plant and animal species.

Native American ethnobotany : a database of foods, drugs, dyes and fibers of Native American Peoples, derived from plants (University of Michigan-Dearborn, United States)
This online database contains more than 44,000 uses for some 4,000 plants used by Native American groups. The database can be searched using Boolean operators and/or keywords. Returned records provide common and scientific name, documented uses and citations. Compiled by Dan Moerman, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan-Dearborn.

Old Garden Roses and Beyond (Paul Barden)
"This website is dedicated to the appreciation of the Old Garden Roses of the 19th century and before. Also discussed are some of the best modern roses of the 20th (and 21st) century, including the English Roses and Miniature Roses." This site also contains detailed information about growing, propagating and breeding roses.
Also see Find My Roses.

Plant information online (University of Minnesota Libraries)
"Discover sources in North American nurseries for plants, find citations to plants in science and garden literature, link to selected websites for images and regional information about plants, and access information on North American seed and nursery firms."

The Plant List (2010). Version 1 (Missouri Botanical Garden and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew)
The Plant List is a working list of all known plant species. Version 1 aims to be comprehensive for species of Vascular plant (flowering plants, conifers, ferns and their allies) and of Bryophytes (mosses and liverworts). It does not include algae or fungi. Version 1 contains 1,244,871 million scientific plant names of which 298,900 are accepted species names. It includes no vernacular or common plant names. This is a work in progress.

Plant records : Brooklyn Botanic Garden
This online database contains the records of all the species, subspecies, varieties, hybrids and cultivars currently grown at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG). The database may be easily searched by common name or scientific name or family. Search results provide details on the plant's common and scientific name, family, where it can be found in the gardens and accession number. Photographs are available within certain records. The simple search option allows the use of wildcards.

Plant trivia timeline (Huntington Botanical Gardens)
This site provides a simple timeline illustrating major events in the botanical history of the earth and demonstrates the role plants have played in human civilisation. Written by James P. Folsom, this resource aims to chronicle the interaction between plants and humans as well as enlivening the way we view plants.

Plant viruses online : descriptions and lists from the VIDE database
Scientific information on all known plant viruses, developed as a product of the Virus Identification Data Exchange (VIDE) project. The VIDE database includes descriptions and images of most species of virus known to infect plants. It contains data on host range; transmission and control; geographical distribution; physical, chemical and genomic properties; taxonomy and relationships, and selected literature references.

PLANTS Database (USDA) (United States Department of Agriculture)
The PLANTS database searchable by scientific or common name focuses on vascular plants, mosses, liverworts, hornworts, and lichens of the U.S. and its territories. The database "includes names, checklists, automated tools, identification information, species abstracts, distributional data, crop information, plant symbols, plant growth data, plant materials information, plant links, references, and other plant information."

Plantzafrica.com (South African National Biodiversity Institute)
This site provides information about plants and vegetation indigenous to southern Africa. Features include an alphabetical list of native plants with a brief outline of each, vegetation types of southern Africa, and how to use southern African plants in gardening. To assist South African gardeners there is also list of plants from other countries which have been listed as Declared Weeds and Alien Invader Plants in South Africa. An archive of relevant articles is also available on the site.

Poisonous Plants (Cornell University)
Images and information on hundreds of known plant poisons and their effects.

Pronunciation Guide for Latin Plant Names (University of Connecticut)
Hear the Latin pronunciation of thousands of plant names.

[Pruning] : How to prune trees (United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service)
Excellent data-sheet with many illustrations on how to prune trees.

[Pruning] : How to recognize hazardous defects in trees (United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service)
Excellent publication with many illustrations to help home owners recognize hazardous defects in trees and recommend corrective actions that can be undertaken by professional arborists.

Pruning ornamental trees and shrubs (Montréal Botanical Garden / Jardin botanique de Montréal)
Information on the growth and pruning of ornamental trees and shrubs including tools and recommendations, and when and how to prune shrubs, trees and conifers. [English, French]

Pruning roses (Montréal Botanical Garden / Jardin botanique de Montréal)
Information about pruning roses based on the different types of roses. [English, French]

Pruning trees and shrubs (North Dakota State University)
General illustrated how-to sheet on when and how to prune evergreens, deciduous trees, shrubs and hedges (Document number H1036). You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer to open this PDF (294 KB) file.

RHS Plant Finder (Royal Horticultural Society, Great Britain)
"RHS Plant Finder exists to put gardeners in touch with growers and suppliers of plants." With more than 70,000 plant species described and indexed, this is an excellent source for plant name verification. The RHS Plant Finder database is updated annually from the catalogues of about 750 UK nurseries.

Rhododendrons, Azaleas and Vireyas
The Dutch Chapter of the ARS has created a new searchable Website with thousands of pictures of rhododendrons and azaleas. Using the online database of photographs and information you will get an overview of as many rhododendron species and cultivars (hybrids) as possible. There is also a virtual botanical garden and virtual arboretum.

Succulent Plant Page
This site contains information on growing, identifying, propagating and conserving the succulent (i.e. water storing) species that have adapted to the arid climates of deserts and semi-deserts. Descriptions of succulent plants are provided, as well as a collection of photographs taken by the site's author, Richard Hodgkiss. Links to events, organisations and societies, recommended books, and an alphabetical glossary containing over 1000 botanical terms are also included here.

Virtual Palm Encyclopedia
An extensive reference pertaining to all aspects of palms. This online book edited by palm enthusiast Jody L Haynes is divided into 16 chapters, many containing collections of articles. Chapters include scientific descriptions and taxonomy, identification keys, evolution and the fossil record, palm conservation, horticulture, and pests and diseases. The photographs in the photo gallery have been taken by the editor, provided by others or collected from other Internet sites with permission. The list of annotated links to other palm-related sites are grouped according to content

Wildflowers in Bloom (Texas Agricultural Extension Service and Wildseed Farms)
A pictorial resource of wildflower information, the site presents an extensive collection of wildflower images browsable by common or scientific name. Each record contains an image and description including data on uses, habitat, and notes on cultivation. Recommended wildflower mixes, seed sources, horticultural tips and growing techniques are also included.

[Wisteria] : Growing Wisteria Fact Sheet (Ohio State University)
This fact sheet about growing Wisteria includes information on plant characteristics, site requirements, culture soil preparation, plant support, pruning and failure to bloom.

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Classification: Botany; Botany - Images; Botany - Organisations; Botany - Regional treatment (floras); Horticulture; Plant varieties; Gardens

Document updated 2011 November 27

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