THE IMPORTANCE OF OPEN-SOURCE DIGITAL HERBARIUMS IN INDIA

Abstract

India is the home of many endemic plants also with more than half lakh plant species present in this geographical part. The term "electronic herbarium" refers to digital representations of plant specimens. More than half a dozen open-source herbarium databases are present in India. These are Central National Herbarium, Howrah; Janaki Ammal Herbarium; Deccan Regional Centre; Hyderabad; French Institute of Pondicherry; ENVIS Centre on Medicinal Plants (Digital Herbarium); Kerala Forest Research Institute (Herbarium); Forest Research Institute, Dehradun; Blatter Herbarium, St. Xavier’s College, Fort Bombay; The Herbarium of Regional Plant Resource Centre (RPRC), Odisha. Around four million herbariums sheet, are present in these herbariums. Only less than 10% of Indian total herbarium ware is still digitalized. Experts can magnify images in a digital herbarium to identify specimens. High-resolution images can offer early specimens additional traits. The open souse image helps distinguish someone who received the same specimen in a different place or country. In this paper, I tried to give information regarding the Indian open souse digital herbarium database as well as its advantages over the conventional herbarium.