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 37 · DO #478 · 204_Popenoe_Bx33FF48r

Collection
Wilson Popenoe (1892–1975) family papers
Item/Folder
Cinchona Cultivation in Guatemala - manuscripts, notes, copies, n.d.
Digital Object
DO #478, page 37
Collection-level dates
1882–1975
Open PDF at page 37 ↗

Page transcription

-5-

Succirubras are abundant in Guatemala: they are scattered widely throughout
the Versapaz, they are abundant on the Pacific side in the region of El Por-
venir, and there is one splendid old tree in the Finca Jauja at Antigua.

Calisayas, particularly those of the Ledger type, require very
special conditions of climate and more particularly of soil. They must have
loose, friable soils rich in organic matter; they must have abundant moisture
during most of the year; and they cannot tolerate heavy winds. To give high
yields of quinine they must be grown at considerable elevations - probably not
lower than 3000 or 3500 feet in Guatemala, though it will take time to determine
by actual trial just what is the profitable lower, as well as the upper, limit
of cultivation.

Regarding calisayas other than those of the Ledger type we do not
know a great deal. They seem to have been introduced into the Coban region
during the 1870's, when Cinchona cultivation was attracting serious attention
in that part of Guatemala, and it seems probable that they have been planted
at El Forvenir. Since all Cinchonas cross-pollinate readily, and since the
calisaya types are more delicate than the succirubras, the tendency has been
for the true calisayas to die out, but for some of their blood to persist in
calisaya x succirubra hybrids, trees which are of vigorous growth (as is
frequently the case with hybrids) and which sometimes contain sufficient quinine
to make their bark of commercial value. We do not yet know what can be
expected of these hybrids in Guatemala. Some of them, when propagated by
grafting, may prove worthy of commercial cultivation.

We do not know, in fact, what will be the ultimate thing for
commercial cultivation in Guatemala. Will it be grafted trees of the Ledger
type, like the best of those grown in Java? Will it be seedling strains of the