This just keeps getting better. The timing of everything that could possibly be connected with my research portion of the Canada Council for the Arts grant opportunity is outstanding. Like, knockin' it out of the park!
Oftentimes as I head to my part time job at the museum, I have CBC radio playing in my van. There's no commercials. It's mostly art, music, literature, science, news stories, interviews, comedy. Last week, as I was driving, I think I was floating! There was an announcement about a highly detailed collection of around 70,000 specimens of plants at the University of Regina (that's where I graduated from!). Not everyone knows it's there. The man who created the collection in 1954 was George F. Ledingham. He retired last century but never stopped collecting specimens from the Prairie Grasslands. After his passing in 2006, this collection, named the Ledingham Herbarium, started to be digitized by current students and faculty. BRILLIANT, because honestly, without it being digitized, it remains a private collection and not a public one.
 |
| You can see more examples of the collection here. |
20,000 of these plants are directly from the Saskatchewan landscape. Some extend in to the grasslands of neighboring privinces and states, but the collection is housed here in my province.
Fun fact: approximately 20,000 of these specimens are mosses and lichens! Wow. Who knew? 50,000 of the 70,000 are vascular plants.
The announcement went public because the Saskatchewan-specific collection is done being scanned and should be publicly available for viewing by the end of the year. (yesssssssssssss!)
Remember my dear friend and mentor Margot Lindsay? I was so excited to pass this news on to her. I don't thing k she gets out to see the prairie in person as often as she did when she was younger, but I know it warms her heart to hear that people still care about the plants and the preservation of the land.
Here is a lovely interview with one of the women overseeing the project. Enjoy!
Brief Interview with Dr. Mel Hart: Saskatchewan Flora Goes Digital
~Monika
1 comment:
What a great resource. xx
Post a Comment