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 198 · DO #1089 · 16_Hermann_Bx1FF2r

Collection
Frederick Joseph Hermann (1906–1987) papers
Item/Folder
Letters 2, 1935–1936
Digital Object
DO #1089, page 198
Collection-level dates
1934–1951
Open PDF at page 198 ↗

Page transcription

My write up of this genus is not at all satisfactory. Anderson(in Rhodora) and Friesner in Butler U. studies have gotten this genus in such a shape I do not know if I am going or coming. I have a lot of plants growing here and my assistant took measurements and observation every day last year. Trouble we do not have all the forms growing here. "hat I lack is plants with maroon petals and with a maroon ovary. In the event you are out and can run across such and send me the corms will you please do so. The ovaries of all my plants are white and remain so. We have paid especial attention to the position of the peduncle. The peduncles of all our plants seem to be stationary. They are either under the leaves from the beginning to the end or above them and never decline below them. Assistant made notes on ours every day. Wonder if this movement of the peduncles is a myth or not. Probably and assumption only. Now Hermann I find so many opportunities for the Hall-Clemet's method of Taxonomy in the common sense of the term. There are certain plants we must put under cultivation and watch em and plant the progeny of a plant and note the variations, etc. Trillium is one of them. Sagittaria is another. Note the influence of moisture and fertility on Sagittaria. Lunell did some good work on the Sagittaria and Ranunculus. When you get established I hope you will be able to undertake some of these knotty problems. The general statement that light, moisture, and soil affect plants but to what extent on certain species I think is not yet known. By the way Fernald in last Rhodora splits Lippia lanceolata. So far as I can see I have both forms of it. Would like to show my plants when you come down

I am certainly glad to get "the low down" on Farwell. he has so impressed me and lately I rarely consult his multitudinous varieties etc. I never met him. Once I called on Cecil Billington, Detroit, and I had written in advance if it would be agreeable to Farwell for me to call on him at Parke, Davis Co, then was a drug ist and he never answered my letter. So I was "snubbed" and a cheap cuss like me is the kind to remmeber it longest, so I never tied up to him except on one occasion when he wrote an article on Cornus.