IMAGING OF NEW TYPE SPECIMENS Contributed by George Ferguson
In the intervening years since The University of Arizona Herbarium (ARIZ) participated in a Global Plants Initiative a decade ago, more species have been described, including some deposited at ARIZ. The Global Plants project gathered high resolution images of type specimens (all the reference vouchers for species descriptions) from herbaria around the world. Those images are permanently archived and became accessible in JSTOR, a digital library of academic journals and primary sources. This included over 1200 type specimens from our ARIZ Herbarium. We recently gathered all the additional type specimens that had been left out from the original imaging project, due to problematic issues, plus any newly described species. We got them properly mounted, labeled, attached barcodes, and updated in the database. Since the original Global Plants project required a special scanner that could scan a specimen without turning it upside down, we arranged for a trip to the ASU Herbarium in April 2024.
Our student worker Naomi Kelsey and collections manager George Ferguson carefully packed 102 type specimens as a formal short-term herbarium loan, and hand-carried to ASU in Sun Devil Country. The ASU Biodiversity Center is a state of the art renovated warehouse building two miles south of the main ASU Tempe campus with free parking. It houses all their natural history museum collections in nine separate units of the same facility, even fossil plants, impressive for our Sun Devil rivals! Their scanning process is efficient, though it took the two of us the morning, and after a quick break at the facility’s lunch room, it took the full afternoon to complete. Herbarium curator Liz Makings hosted us and at the end of the day gave a tour of the other collections, especially the mammals, of interest to Naomi, a student in wildlife conservation.
The ARIZ set of type specimens we scanned for posting in JSTOR included three Salvia types that had been hiding in the main cabinets for decades; Jesús Gallegos while visiting from Mexico discovered them during his week-long review annotating specimens from Mexico at ARIZ. A couple of Howard Gentry specimens from the 1940s are now recognized as new species of Pectis and Verbesina. Some of the recent newly described species deposited at ARIZ included: Chamaesaracha felgeri from SW Arizona named for Dr. Richard Felger, Stevia purica collected by Ana Lilia Reina-G. at Sierra La Púrica, Sonora, Stevia reinana, Diospyros reinae from E of Hermosillo, both named for Ana Lilia, Lepechinia yecorana from E of Yécora, Sonora collected by Tom Van Devender, Reina-G., and Ferguson et al., a new Leucophyllum from E of Alamos, Sonora described by Henrickson and Van Devender, two Rubiaceae: a Chiococca collected by Paul Martin from Tepopa, Sonora, described by Lorence and Van Devender, Stenaria sanchezii collected by Felger near Guaymas, Sonora, named for Jesús Sanchez-E., curator of USON herbarium in Hermosillo, a new Astragalus martiniii named for Dr. Paul Martin, Geosciences professor at UA. Greg Starr described two new Agave species from Oaxaca, Mexico, and Agave azurea with Robert Webb from Baja California. A new Erigeron decrescens species collected in Cochise County, AZ by Chris Roll was described by Nesom and Roll, a Hymenoxys variety from Dragoon Mts., AZ collected by Frank Reichenbacher was described by Mark Bierner, a Dichromanthes orchid new forma from Santa Cruz Co., AZ described by Ron Coleman, a new Loeselliastrum from Wupatki National Monument, AZ described by Rich Crawford at NAU, and a new Helianthus from Las Vegas, Nevada among other important types at ARIZ will be posted in JSTOR. It was a worthwhile organizational effort (and trip to Sun Devil country) to finally get these 102 specimen records to now include an image of each online.