Royal Ontario Museum Green Plant Herbarium (TRT)

Study Extent

Digitization of vascular plant and bryophyte specimens records from the Green Plant Herbarium of the Royal Ontario Museum (TRT), with a focus on plants of Ontario and Crataegus of North America.

Sampling

All data are manually digitized as text from specimen labels. Since 2011 specimen accessioning includes digital imaging, but these have not yet been deployed in data entry.

Quality Control

Legacy data have been formatted to fit the new Darwin Core-compliant database structure and have been cleaned to the best of our abilities, but they may still contain inconsistencies. They are further corrected on an ad hoc basis as resources permit. New records are entered using controlled vocabularies where relevant and should contain fewer errors.

Method steps

1. Examine specimen and any attached/included labels. Verify and update determination if qualified.
2. Search specimen record in collection database and update where necessary, or create new record and populate fields with the information on the specimen and annotation labels. Use controlled vocabularies where relevant. New determinations are recorded under the local components of scientificName, and the earlier ones are concatenated under previousIdentifications.
3. Additional specimen data related to voucher status, publications and derived samples are included if available.
4. Prepare and attach the label generated from the completed database record to the physical specimen, if new, apply barcode label, take digital image, and then scan the barcode number into the image filename and (separately) into database record.

This dataset comprises digitized specimen records of vascular plants and bryophytes, identified to species. Current emphasis is on woody plants of Ontario, and Crataegus of North America.

1. Plantae
   common name: Plants rank: kingdom
2. Equisetopsida
   common name: Vascular plants rank: class
3. Crataegus
   common name: Hawthorn rank: genus

The ROM Green Plant Herbarium houses plant specimens documenting the Ontario flora, and allied floras of North America and Eurasia. Specimens from other floras, including neotropical (Grenada, Guyana) provide broad taxonomic coverage. Images are collected that relate to the taxa and taxon associations (vegetation units) represented in the herbarium. The herbarium also holds Quaternary and archaeobotanical collections from Ontario, other provinces and territories, and adjacent states, with collections from Florida, Minnesota, and Grenada. These include stratified botanical fossils from studies of past vegetation, climate, hydrology, and limnology.