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:

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 54 · DO #976 · 319_Love_Bx1FF21r

Collection
Áskell Löve (1916–1994) papers
Item/Folder
"Wheatgrasses" (3 of 3)
Digital Object
DO #976, page 54
Collection-level dates
1950–1987
Open PDF at page 54 ↗

Page transcription

2a.

It has been said, that there are as many concepts of the basic categories of plant classification as that a distinct designation of each of these is not necessary. That is a truth with considerable modifications, although it may fit too much to the application of the descriptive method when used for little known taxa. Although Linnaeus never directly defined his categories, it is implicit in his work that he was thinking of a certain degree of relationship and phylogeny at the levels beyond the genus, and such an idea has been increasingly basic to most taxonomic work by later generations. But when the knowledge of a taxon has reached the level of the comparative method based on the theory of evolution, the distinct designations of the basic categories become impractical. Therefore, systematic taxonomists applying the empirical methods as additional to morphology for the exact biological classification of thoroughly known taxa may accept the family in its traditional sense as a collection of genera which are likely, as far as morphological indicators may go, to have evolved from a common ancestor, although frequently this cannot be proven by aid of any cytological indicators. For the other categories, or the genera, species, subspecies, varieties, however, the biological concept (biological or evolutionary concept) is (biologically) decisive. According to that concept, a taxon at the genus level, biological or evolutionary, biological or evolutionary modification of the Linnaean concept is modified in such a way that a taxon at these levels is defined biologically or cytogenetically but identified morphologically, primarily by aid of characters of flowers, fruits or flowering branches as advocated by Linnaeus (1753), since these attributes are less affected by planetary influences than the more vegetative characteristics. The biological approach suggests that natural groups are separated by restrictions or barriers to crossability tending towards total incompatibility (Gleiser, Line 1975a, 1975b). Such clusters of related species should, as far as possible, demonstrate morphological, cytological, or other evidence of linear branching evolution within the group, i.e., they have common phylogenetic restricted reproductive isolation without reticulation to earlier stages of relationship, as well as restricted crossability and