Tutorial
On the left side you find an image of a specimen.
On the right side you will be asked for information you can find on the main label of the specimen.
The fields requested initially are simple.
Registered users are promoted as they accumulate validated answers.
High levels are asked for fields considered more difficult to interpret.
EXPLORATOR - Crowdsourcing platform
Here you can help to database the specimens of the largest biological collection in Portugal.
Choose a project to get started!
Active projects
Lentibulariaceae of Angola
Plants of the Lentibulariaceae family are small carnivorous plants, widely distributed in humid regions.
The family comprises 3 genera: Genlisea, Utricularia and Pinguicula, which occur in various aquatic and humid habitats, such as river banks, waterlogged areas and seasonally flooded areas. Each genus has a distinct type of highly specialized trap that it uses to capture and digest its prey, which in this case are small invertebrates and protozoa.
photo: Victoria, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
47 Specimens
Vascular flora of the Serra do Caramulo
Located in central Portugal, between the former provinces of Beira Alta and Beira Litoral, Serra do Caramulo reaches its highest point in Caramulinho, at 1074 m altitude. On this mountain there can be found a flora from diverse habitats, such as riparian galleries, deciduous forests and mountain meadows.
Photo by Filipe Covelo
381 Specimens
Rosaceae of Portugal
Family of major economic importance not only for its fruits but also for its ornamentals. Well-known edible fruits are very variable being drups (fleshy with a stone) as in apricot, cherry, nectarine, peach, plums, prune, almond; pomes as in apple, quince, pear, loquat; aggregates (with free carpels) as in blackberry, raspberry, strawberry. The beautiful tree Prunus lusitanica is widely planted as a hedge as are Spiraea, Cotoneaster, Pyracantha, Crataegus and some others. Rosa is the best-known ornamental species and there are many thousand hybrids and cultivars. Rose perfumes are made from rose oil, a mixture of essential oils obtained by steam distilling the crushed petals.
1103 Specimens
Flora of Timor-Leste
The UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) project “Establishing the National framework and operational capacity for implementing the Nagoya Protocol in Timor-Leste” was funded by Global Environment Facility (GEF), that funds projects of developing countries to meet the objectives of global environmental conventions and agreements. This project will support the creation of databases to help the guidance of future research activities in Timor-Leste.
image: Colin Trainor, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
479 Specimens
Miscellanea
This project contains several specimens that, over the years of databasing the herbarium, for some reason, have not been completely transcribed.
Photo by Filipe Covelo
724 Specimens
Grasses of Cape Verde
The Poaceae constitute one of the most important plant families in Cape Verde, both in terms of the number of spontaneous species and their role in feeding humans and animals. They have been studied for their role as potential Crop Wild Relatives that develop in the extreme environmental conditions of these islands. The evolution of floristic composition in Poaceae over the last 80 years was also investigated with the aim of detecting trends dictated by climate change and outlining resource management strategies for the future.
image: Cayambe, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
314 Specimens
Detectives
Can you help us to find out the missing information about these specimens?
Every record lacks some information, and in many cases, you must be a real detective to find out from the few clues the specimens contain!
650 Specimens
Plants of São Tomé and Príncipe
São Tomé and Príncipe (STP) is one of the most interesting biodiversity hotspots in the Gulf of Guinea, with a large percentage of endemisms.
The Herbarium of the University of Coimbra has one of the main flora collections from the archipelago since the 19th century, many of which were the very first specimens collected of their species. This important collection contains precious information on the rich plant diversity of São Tomé and Príncipe, that will be made public for the first time with this transcription project.
Photo: "Ikabanga - 1088 - São Tomé and Príncipe" - Thecacoris manniana (Müll.Arg.) Müll.Arg. Collected in Sao Tome and Principe by Lewis Eduardo (licensed under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/)
536 Specimens
Plants of Brazil
The immense diversity of algae, fungi and plants in Brazil is represented in the country's herbaria and in several foreign ones. The "National Institute of Science and Technology (INCT) Virtual Herbarium of Flora and Fungi in Brazil" is an initiative that proposes to integrate online, in a free and open way, information from herbarium collections in Brazil and abroad that have collections made in Brazilian soil.
photo: Marcelino Dias, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
741 Specimens
Grasses of Guinea-Bissau
Guinea-Bissau is a small tropical country (2.5 times smaller than Portugal) more than 20% of its territory being occupied by water. Mangroves thrive along the coast and river banks. There are also areas of rice paddies, sub-humid and dry forests, and inland savannas. Here, grasses play an important role. Those grasses that develop in the salty areas, with soil saturated with salt, where few species can survive, are also of major ecological importance.
379 Specimens
Portuguese Cruciferae
These specimens belong to the family Brassicaceae, also known as Cruciferae, a botanical family that includes cabbages and Arabidopsis thaliana, one of the most used species in genetic studies worldwide.
2451 Specimens
African Convolvulaceae
A few specimens of Convolvulaceae from Africa
Photograph by: Robert Lafond
126 Specimens
Plants of the Azores
In the Atlantic, there are traces of an ancestral flora from a period when the planet was warmer. This flora, named Laurissilva (Laurel forest), is found in the archipelagos of the Azores, Madeira, the Canaries, and even Cape Verde. The largest collection of the Azorean flora is at the Herbarium of the University of Coimbra.
426 Specimens
The mint Family
The mint family includes aromatic plants widely used since ancient times. Many are used in the kitchen, others are ornamentals, and some are used in cosmetics and as medicines, the most common being basil, hyssop, lavender, marjoram, mint, oregano, rosemary, sage, thyme. The sweet aromatic smell is due to essential oils in glandular hairs present in most parts of the plant, but mainly the leaves.
211 Specimens
Crassulaceae
More than 60 plant families have succulents. But some of those are dominantly succulent, such as the Crassulaceae (lat. crassus = thick, fat) with thick, fleshy stems and leaves due to special water-storage tissues.
735 Specimens
Saxifragaceae
Saxifragaceae are plants primarily in the northern hemisphere, from the Arctic to temperate zones. Interestingly, they are also found in the tropical mountains. The family's center of diversity is in eastern North America, east Asia and the Himalayas. They are generally perennial herbaceous with mostly basal and often succulent leaves. The flowers, although small, are numerous, and several species are cultivated as ornamental.
241 Specimens
Willkomm Herbarium
Moritz Willkomm (1821-1895) built a very important plant collection of c. 31.000 specimens, for a long time at the Herbarium of the University of Coimbra.
Most of the specimens have been databased.
We ask for your collaboration to finalise the project.
2017 Specimens
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recent comments
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phil
Line 1, there is a determinator and a date.
2025-05-17 15:25:50 -
phil
Line 1, there is a determinator and a date.
2025-05-17 15:23:29 -
phil
The determination was made a few days later by consulting a flora, the date is unknown.
2025-05-17 08:15:38 -
Joaquim Santos UC
Thank you @Bissy Gueorguieva. Indeed. Unfortunantely we are not recording the verbatim date, only the interpreted standard date. So it should be written in the standard format, which is the way we can ingest it into the central database.
2025-05-13 10:27:35 -
Joaquim Santos UC
thank you @phil. You are right. Apparently I did not configure this field in the most appropriate way. The issue is that the labels often only say when a plant is cultivated, and omit this when they are not. In our central database, this is a checkbox that we check when cultivated. I have changed the form to have only "yes" as an option, and if no information about cultivation, people select the "no information" checkbox. Hope this is more clear about how to fill in this field.
2025-05-13 10:20:40