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 14 · DO #993 · 319_Love_Bx2FF38r

Collection
Áskell Löve (1916–1994) papers
Item/Folder
Resignation from University of Colorado (1 of 2), 1970-1972
Digital Object
DO #993, page 14
Collection-level dates
1950–1987
Open PDF at page 14 ↗

Page transcription

numerous individual trips when both teams split up into smaller expeditions.
All this material was potted in the Gardens and much of it has already been
fixed for cytological study, at the same time that duplicate vouchers were
carefully produced for more detailed identification later. Considerable
numbers of cytological preparations had already been studied before the
American team returned home at the end of August, and the rest will be
worked out during the winter months. The numbers for 115 species,
representing eighty genera and 38 families, have already been submitted
for printing in November in the journal Taxon. These include some of the
more remarkable endemics, whereas most of the endemics of the Julian Alps,
the Karawanken, the Kamnian Alps, and Trnovski Gozd will be studied more
closely during the winter, together with some selected taxa of special
interest.

3. The Endemics

In addition to field observations of the endemics and studies of
their chromosome numbers, we tried to make a complete taxonomical review
of all the Slovenian endemics, and studied them morphologically and
chorologically in great detail. A thorough study of their distribution,
including mapping, is being made by Ernest Mayer. These studies are being
coordinated with similar studies in the central and western Alps by
Professor Cl. Favarger and his students in Neuchatel in Switzerland, the
foremost specialist on the cytotaxonomy of the Alpique flora, and with
studies of endemics and alpine plants from Spain and Italy performed but
not yet published by Åskell and Doris LÖve and on alpine plants from the
arctic regions of Atlantic Europe by the American Principal Investigators
and Dr. Gunvor Knaben. Although all the Slovenian endemics were under
study already this first season, special attention was given the following
complexes and taxa, which may serve as examples.

a. Iris cengialti Ambr. and I. illyrica Tommas. These are taxa of
the eastern Alps and of the coastal mountains of the northern Adriatic.
Although morphologically and geographically distinct, these species have
been known to cross and give rise to apparently fertile hybrids, and on the
basis of morphology some botanists in the past have regarded them as races
only of the much more widespread southeast European Iris pallida Lam.
Our chromosome studies do not contradict this conclusion, since all these
taxa are characterized by the same number (2n = 24) and at least very
similar morphology of chromosomes. However, a more detailed study of