FORT WORTH, TX – April 14, 2022 – The National Science Foundation recently awarded the Botanical Research Institute of Texas and the California Botanic Garden nearly $1 million to support the digitization and linking of plant specimens and other archival materials.
Through the Infrastructure Capacity for Biological Research program, botanists and library staff will curate and digitize the biological and archival materials of renowned American Botanist Sherwin Carlquist. This four-year collaborative project, “Advancing the Extended Specimen Network: Curating and Digitizing the Sherwin Carlquist Collection” aims to create an Extended Specimen Network with Carlquist’s collections. The concept of the extended specimen encompasses various linked components relating to an individual specimen, including the physical specimen, its digitized specimen record, and other associated biological preparations and data types, such as field notes, images in situ of the specimen and its habitat, and genetic samples.
Dr. Carlquist’s esteemed career included tenure as a botanist at Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, professor emeritus at Claremont Graduate School and Pomona College, being named a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow and earning awards from the Smithsonian Institution and California Academy of Sciences.
“We are delighted that his valuable work will be accessible to researchers across various scientific disciplines and members of the public,” said Librarian Ana Niño. “The archival materials—mostly photographic in nature except for his field notebooks—will be digitized here at BRIT, and the biological materials like herbarium specimens, fluid-preserved specimens, wood specimens, and wood anatomy microscopic slides will be digitized concurrently at California Botanic Garden.”
The amount awarded to BRIT is $509,792, and the amount awarded to CalBG is $482,583, for a total of $992,375.
Editors: Contact csmith@brit.org for photos.
Fort Worth Botanic Garden | Botanical Research Institute of Texas (BRIT®)
The Fort Worth Botanic Garden (FWBG) is the oldest public botanic garden in Texas with beautiful theme gardens, including the Fuller Garden, Rose Garden, Japanese Garden, and the Victor and Cleyone Tinsley Garden, which features plants native to north central Texas. The Botanical Research Institute of Texas (BRIT®) is a nonprofit, international research, education and conservation organization that collects and safeguards plant specimens, studies and protects living plants, and teaches about the importance of conservation and biodiversity to the world. BRIT assumed nonprofit management of the Fort Worth Botanic Garden Oct. 1, 2020. The combined organization comprises 120 acres in Fort Worth’s Cultural District two miles west of downtown Fort Worth at 3220 Botanic Garden Blvd., Fort Worth, Texas 76107.
Summer Hours: Monday-Sunday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Admission: $12 for adults, $10 for seniors 65+, $6 for children 6-15 and free for those under 5.
Parking: Parking is free between the garden center and the BRIT building and in the weekend parking lot (Lot D) during regular business hours.
