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 43 · DO #961 · 319_Love_Bx1FF6r

Collection
Áskell Löve (1916–1994) papers
Item/Folder
"Outlines for Books and Articles to be Published but Never Completed" (2 of 3) , 1969, n.d.
Digital Object
DO #961, page 43
Collection-level dates
1950–1987
Open PDF at page 43 ↗

Page transcription

9.
28/3/65.
(Aneuploidy - October 1924)
In connection with the discussion of autotriploids and autotetraploids, the phenomenon that is called aneuploidy has been mentioned. Aneuploidy is the occurrence of chromosome numbers that deviate from exact multiples of the chromosome sets. Examples include individuals with numbers that are not strictly polyploid having reduced vigor or are mostly inferior to normal individuals in the respective species. This is also the case with hybrids, in which only unbalanced gametes are viable because they alone contain a complete set of chromosomes.

Our knowledge of aneuploidy and its effects is to a large extent based on the detailed investigations of trisomics (October 1924), which in the 1920s were carried out by the Americans A.F. Blakeslee and J. Delby on Datura stramonium, the common weed. It is a diploid species with 2n = 24 chromosomes. Blakeslee and Delby obtained their material plants with 2n = 25 chromosomes, which they termed trisomics because they had three chromosomes in one kind instead of two, and probably they obtained trisomics in each of the 12 chromosome pairs, which they called the twelve apostles; and each was found to be morphologically distinct and easily distinguishable from one another. This is a nice demonstration of the fact that the genes do not occur in the chromosomes.

The trisomics are less vigorous than the normal diploids, but certain trisomics are distinct in this respect, and pollen grains with an extra chromosome are less vigorous than the normal ones in plants.
(Chromosome segregation ratio is frequently 2:1, but rarely 17:1). Downey's syndrome: mongolism. Maize, wheat, rye, etc., none liable in polyploids, lethal in diploids. Used for embryo rescue and plant breeding.

I have mentioned that it is evident that evolution has caused entire chromosome sets from two species to join as a hybrid. It is also possible to bring together partly different genomes. For instance, crosses we made between wheat with 42 chromosomes and rye with 56 chromosomes, a hybrid with 49 chromosomes (42 wheat + 7 rye) will be obtained. If such a hybrid is backcrossed to wheat, it is possible to get plants with 42 wheat chromosomes and single rye chromosome, and among these plants it is possible to add economically important properties as disease resistance. It has even been possible to substitute one wheat chromosome pair for one rye pair. Though this is only used rarely in plant breeding, it is at least possible that something similar with considerable effects, it is at least possible that something similar may also have taken place rarely in nature.