Australian National Herbarium (Program HC)
Australia's Virtual Herbarium (AVH)
Program Leader: Brendan Lepschi
Australia's Virtual Herbarium (AVH) is an on-line botanical information resource accessible via the web. It provides immediate access to the wealth of data associated with scientific plant specimens in each Australian herbarium. Six million specimen records, of particular value in displaying geographic distribution, will be enhanced by images, descriptive text and identification tools.
The AVH is a collaborative project of the State, Commonwealth and Territory herbaria. It is being developed under the auspices of the Council of Heads of Australian Herbaria (CHAH), representing the major Australian collections.
www.ersa.edu.au/avh/
How the AVH works
The AVH is accessed via the website of any participating herbarium. A gateway at each of these herbaria links to the databases of all the other herbaria, consolidating the combined data into a nation-wide view of the botanical information. Most data related to specimens will be stored by the custodial institution, and there will be some resources, such as the scientific names database (Australian Plant Names Index, APNI) which will be common to all.
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