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 18 · DO #1257 · 53_Arber_AN22r

Collection
Agnes Robertson Arber (1879–1960) papers
Item/Folder
Notebook An 22 -- "17 II" ; Guy de la Brosse notebook & paper at beginning, 1939–1947, n.d.
Digital Object
DO #1257, page 18
Collection-level dates
1886–1985
Open PDF at page 18 ↗

Page transcription

new ready Dec 1943 bef Jan 1944
130 B
Camerarius R.T.
Ueber das Geschlecht der Pflanzen (De sexu plantarum
epistola) 1654. Uebersetzung von M. Miibius
II,27,105 Leipzig 1855

p.1. "Corus" almost times means 3 things
1. The corus plant a flower, 2. the anthos, 3. the space, 4. the crown flower.
By the bundle, 5 styles, stamens for the middle, 6. crown flower.
p.2. Prostanthera flowers may have stamens within petals
p.3. Thus the myrtaceous flowers. Myrtaceae ask to classify others in their genus, Arctotis seem to be
are to true flowers, 7. the rose.
(He evidently does not call the caryed fan V. of flower.)
p.3. Vermeoly does not contain 10 anters, thus unable to manage
different kinds of pollen flowers may be spathily exteriorly.

The Setter, 20 flowers, 70 krook w825. Dicranium
The Setter, 20 flowers, 70 krook w825. Dicranium
p.4. Discusses numerical relations, stamen-petals.
p.12. Defining terms 1. John. Rud. Camerarius as his grandfather
moorei Sylloge memorabilium 1652
p.13. Mercurei's Book Cap CV (pp2 into 43) notes
to eastern, fertile, superfertile plants, those which are fertilized by some seed
p.13. Its seeds held from fertilized flowers from pure seed
in large neglectus cultivation.
But he found on that the explant, only one hill, never
woodcock plants in fields, 1. jades, divers plants but
less, my 1653, 5 plants, 2. wild flowers
p.17 et seq. 1. stamens? 2. sterile flowers in the absence?
p.36-37. The carus/anthos?
olymnager of anthos
p.41 et seq. botan. deal largely in 6 compound plants
amids and ageratum in their reproductive processes
No mention mix natural melts and his account his own errors