Collaborative Research: CSBR: Natural History Collections: Magnolia grandiFLORA, digitally linking herbaria to support botanical research and education in Mississippi

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The Magnolia grandiFLORA project, named in honor of the official state tree and flower of Mississippi, will develop digital databases of images, labels, and georeferenced locality data for more than 250,000 vascular plant specimens from herbaria at Mississippi State University, University of Mississippi, Delta State University, University of Southern Mississippi, Gulf Coast Research Laboratory, Mississippi Museum of Natural Science, and Institute for Botanical Exploration. A web interface that allows for integrated database searches will be established through the High Performance Computing Collaboratory at Mississippi State University. Specimen imaging and label digitization will provide worldwide access to the collections, biological and geographical metadata for broad-scale studies based on plants, and a permanent back-up of specimen data in the event of natural or other disasters. The resulting high quality data set will provide tools for plant identification and information on plant distributions in Mississippi to government agencies, researchers, and the general public. These data have applications in tracking rare and invasive species, developing environmental policy, increasing citizen knowledge of the natural history of Mississippi, and enhancing K-12 science education with interactive tools. The data will contribute to the development of a comprehensive list of plants in Mississippi and national efforts to catalog and map plant diversity. Numerous undergraduate and graduate students will be involved in the project.