Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation
A Research Division of Carnegie Mellon University

Hunt Institute Archives Text Discovery Platform

Search a large and growing portion of our online collections, including handwritten documents.
PROTOTYPE

This prototype uses state-of-the-art artificial intelligence, including a vision-language model (VLM) capable of reading handwritten documents as well as typed and printed text, to create searchable transcriptions of digitized materials in the Hunt Institute Archives. This makes it possible to search the textual contents of individual pages, including material that may not be described in the archival catalog.

Use Keyword search for specific words, names, dates, scientific names, or phrases. Try Semantic search (experimental) to describe a topic, question, or kind of material when you do not know the exact wording used in the documents.

About the AI-generated transcriptions

The transcriptions are generated automatically from page images and may contain errors, especially with difficult handwriting, unusual names, multiple languages, image-quality problems, or complex layouts. They are intended primarily as a discovery aid rather than authoritative transcriptions.

Each result provides the generated transcription and links to the original digitized material and associated archival description so that readings can be checked against the source. The transcription workflow uses AI models run locally by the Hunt Institute.

About Keyword and Semantic search

Keyword search is the default and matches the wording in the transcriptions. Results contain all your terms. Use quotes for an exact phrase. Substring matching is supported, so aceae can find plant-family names ending in -aceae.

Semantic search (experimental) is useful when you know what kind of material you are looking for but do not know the words used in the documents. It ranks transcribed passages by similarity of meaning, so relevant results may not contain the exact words in your query.

Semantic queries can be broad research topics, descriptions of activities or relationships, or natural-language questions. For example:

plant collecting and fieldwork in South America medicinal, culinary, or other traditional uses of plants chromosomes and plant classification early herbals and botanical illustrations botanical institutions exchanging plants, seeds, and specimens microscopy and photomicrography in botanical research How did botanists and gardeners introduce plants from one region to another? grafting, budding, and propagation of tropical fruit crops

Semantic search is not a chatbot: a question is used as a search query, and the system returns archival passages that appear conceptually related to it rather than generating an answer or summary. Short descriptions and ordinary research questions generally work better than lists of disconnected keywords. Quotation marks have no special meaning in Semantic mode. Cross-language matching may work in some cases, but it should not be treated as translation.

Keyword and Semantic search are complementary. Keyword search lets you require particular wording; Semantic search can surface differently worded passages about the same subject. Depending on the research question, trying both can reveal different useful material.

Open a result: use the prominent page-and-transcription link to see the metadata, PDF, and full transcription. Keyword-search terms are highlighted in the transcription.

Archives Collections Database (ArchivesSpace): the Collection, Item/Folder, and Digital Object links open the corresponding archival records. Collection-level dates describe the collection as a whole, not necessarily the specific item or page.

If a PDF does not load: on the detail page, use the Digital Object link, click “Go to file” in ArchivesSpace, and navigate to the page number shown here.

Current limitations
  • Automated transcriptions can contain missing or incorrect text or unintended repetition. Difficult handwriting, image quality, unusual layouts, and multiple languages can reduce accuracy. Always consult the original page image when an exact reading matters.
  • Semantic search remains experimental. Its rankings are an additional discovery aid, not a complete or definitive set of relevant results, and highly ranked pages can sometimes be only broadly related.
  • This is an active prototype. Search coverage, transcriptions, functionality, and the interface may continue to change as additional archival material is processed and the system is improved.

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Page 61 · DO #1236 · 53_Arber_AN5r

Collection
Agnes Robertson Arber (1879–1960) papers
Item/Folder
Notebook An 5 -- "Herbals and Herbalists", 1901–1904
Digital Object
DO #1236, page 61
Collection-level dates
1886–1985
Open PDF at page 61 ↗

Page transcription

[Reprinted from The Popular Science Monthly, May, 1904.]

ENGLISH HERBALS.

BY AGNES ROBERTSON, B.Sc.,
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON

IN the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries there was a renewal of the scientific spirit, as well as the more obvious revival in art and letters of which we commonly speak as the Renaissance. Among the most striking of the many visible fruits of this revival were numerous herbals, in which all the plants then known were enumerated, described and often beautifully figured. The earliest English example with which I am acquainted is a small, black-letter, anonymous volume published in 1525. The title is 'Here begynneth a newe mater, the whiche sheweth and treateth of ye vertues and propeytes of herbes, the whiche is called an Herball.' There are scarcely any descriptions of the plants, but long and elaborate dissertations on their virtues. Even such a commonplace weed as the plantain is credited with considerable powers: "For heed ache take Plantayne and bynde it aboute thy necke and ye ache shall go out of thy heed." Of rosemary we read: "Take the flowres and make powder thereof and bynde it to the ryght arme in a lynen clothe, and it shall make thee lyght and mery. Also boyle the leves in whyte wynne and washe thy face therwith, and thou shalt have a fayre face. Also put the leves under thy beddes heede, and thou shalt be delyvered of all evyll dreames. Also make thee a box of the wood and smell to it, and it shall preserve thy youte."

In the following year was published one of the most famous of the old herbals, 'The Grete Herball which geveth parfyt knowlege and understanding of all maner of herbes and there gracious vertues.' This includes in addition to plants, descriptions of a number of substances, such as gold, silver, asphalt, starch, vinegar, butter, honey and the lodestone! It contains delightful prescriptions for healing all manner of ailments. For instance, Apium 'is good for lunatyke folke yf it be bounte to the pacientes heede with a lynen clothe dyed reed the moone beynge in cresantun in the sygne of Taurus or Scorpioun in ye fyrst parte of the sygne, and he shal be hole alone'; and as a cure 'for werynesse' we read, "To them that be wary of goynge gyve to drink a dramage of the powdre of Bethony with warm water and an once of orimell." The following statement gives an inkling of the condition of plant-geography at the time: Balsam 'is founde towarde Babylon, in a field whereas VII welles or fountaynes be, and is carried from thens'!

VOL. LXV.-5.