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 20 · DO #1064 · 1_Allen_Bx1FF22r

Collection
Paul Hamilton Allen (1911–1963) papers
Item/Folder
Moore, Harold Emery (1917–1980), 1949–1952
Digital Object
DO #1064, page 20
Collection-level dates
1937–1963
Open PDF at page 20 ↗

Page transcription

ESQUINAS EXPERIMENT STATION
CIA. BANANERA de COSTA RICA
PALMAR SUR, COSTA RICA

September 4, 1951.

Dr. H. E. Moore
Bailey Hortorium
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York

Dear Emery:

Enclosed you will find a few mature fruits of our entire-leaved
Bactris from Tinoco. If you need more please let me know. These were picked
up in a hurry the other day, but I think they will still be in good fruit
for a month or more longer.

I have just returned from the Canal Zone and adjacent Panamanian
territory, where I spent a very pleasant two weeks collecting Dioscoreas,
seeing old friends and places, and, as usual, making quite a haul for our
plant collection at Esquinas. The lot filled a freight car, on my return here,
over eighty species being represented, all new to our collection. I am parti-
cularly glad to get sixteen new species of Asiatic bamboos, including such
fine things as Gigantochloa reticulata, Gigantochloa aspera, and Dendrocalamus
giganteus. I planted these myself at Summit in 1939 from material received from
the U.S.D.A., David Fairchild and others, none at the time exceeding about pencil
diameter and four or five feet in height. It was something of an experience to
go back and see some of them with canes a foot in diameter, towering a hundred
feet in the air. It certainly gives one an entirely new concept of the potential-
ities of the Grasses. Also how an ant must feel in a wheat field.

Within less than a week I leave for Honduras and Nicaragua. I hope
to get to collect and photograph more wild Roystoneas there. As you know, it
is a fascinating, though perplexing genus. But what palms are not? Regards.