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Great Big Story: World Flora Online in the Spotlight

Posted in Interesting Plant Stories on December 29, 2015 by Stevenson Swanson

Stevenson Swanson is the Science Media Manager at The New York Botanical Garden.

Enid A. Haupt ConservatoryIt’s a great big story, all right.

CNN’s new online video unit, called Great Big Story, recently reported on The New York Botanical Garden’s work on World Flora Online, a worldwide effort to produce a single, scientifically verified database of information about all of the world’s plant species—an estimated 350,000 of them.

The video captures the activity in the Mounting Room and Digital Imaging Lab of the William and Lynda Steere Herbarium as specimens are carefully glued to acid-free paper and then photographed in ultra-high resolution before they are filed in the Steere Herbarium.

There are also stunning images of rain forest and desert plants in the Botanical Garden’s Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. The variety and beauty of the plants drive home the point made by Dr. Barbara Thiers, the Garden’s Vice President for Science Administration and Director of the Herbarium.

“Plants are endlessly fascinating,” she says in the video. “We have to know what they are and how they differ from one another in order to understand what kind of measures need to be taken to protect them.”