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.

← Back to results

Page 42 · DO #459 · 204_Popenoe_Bx33FF29r

Collection
Wilson Popenoe (1892–1975) family papers
Item/Folder
Preface, Introduction, and The Mango - manuscript and notes (typed and handwritten) - chapters in outline for proposed book with Herbert Wolfe, n.d.
Digital Object
DO #459, page 42
Collection-level dates
1882–1975
Open PDF at page 42 ↗

Page transcription

320 CEIBA VOL. 4
containers. The method is also used when top-working older avocado trees that have been topped to force sprouts of suitable tissue and diameter for grafting. The regular side-veneer is used with a scion two to three inches long, terminating in a healthy swelling terminal bud. It has been found that holding the scion in place and covering it completely with a strip of 0.0035-inch vinyl film, leaving the tip of the terminal bud exposed, allows the graft to remain moist and at the same time leaves an opening for the springing bud to emerge without unwrapping as quickly as in most grafting operations. Trees from this type of graft are ready to plant in the field from three to five months after grafting.

Top-working. Top-working avocados in Florida has not changed in general practice from the cleft-graft method described by Krome in 1916 (2). The work is still done during the cooler season of the year, November through March; as the warm season approaches, the percentage of "takes" decreases. This method is used to work over seedling trees that are found undesirable or to replace one variety with another. A ten year old avocado grove top-worked by cleft grafting will bear commercial crops within two years. The growth of top-worked trees is prodigious. Within two years the top will be 12 to 15 feet tall with a spread of the same size and will have a trunk diameter almost equal to that of the stock.

MANGO PROPAGATION

The successful budding and grafting of mangos in Florida within the last ten years has advanced rapidly with the demand for the newer varieties originating in this State. Several skilled nursery propagators and research workers have developed techniques that are used to grow thousands of trees each year.

The principal methods used are side-veneer grafting, chip and modified chip budding, and side grafting. The use of these techniques is determined chiefly by the diameter and age of the stock plant. Mango stocks are grafted in Florida from the growth period when the seedlings are still succulent, with a red or purple color, continuing through the successive growth stages until well defined cambium has formed.

1956 CURRENT METHODS 321
Side-veneer grafting and chip budding are the two methods most in use at the present time. The technique of wrapping, budwood selection, and "springing" of the bud vary with the individual propagator, but standard procedures are gradually being established. The majority of trees grown in containers are grafted or budded when the stock has a stem in the "green" stage of maturity. This stage is reached in four to six weeks after the seedling has germinated and continues over a period of several months. The seedlings that are not grafted in the first green stage during the months of July, August and September are held over until the spring and early summer months. Graftage during the cold months is not advisable because growth of the scion is slow and the percentage of "takes" low.