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 108 · DO #1577 · 72_Degener_Bx2FF2_r

Collection
Otto Degener (1899–1988) papers
Item/Folder
Correspondence, 1925–1930, n.d.
Digital Object
DO #1577, page 108
Collection-level dates
1915–1985, n.d.
Open PDF at page 108 ↗

Page transcription

THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII
HONOLULU, HAWAII

DEPARTMENT OF BOTANY

May 29, 1927.

Dr. Elmer D. Merrill,
University of California,
Berkeley, Calif.

Dear Dr. Merrill:

I received your letter of May 20 and was rather amazed by the enclosure referring to a new California Botanical Garden. I know it will be a success, and I will be delighted to send you seeds of Hawaiian plants for it. I still have a few seeds of the rare Kokia left, a beautiful small tree that I consider a pretty good ameasant genus between Hibiscus and Gossypium. I also have seeds of Hillebrandia, the peculiar primitive and showy Hawaiian Begonia genus.

May I suggest an idea that I have long held in regard to planning a garden? Of course, this may work out on paper better than in a garden. I would like to see the beauty of a large part of your tract smorified for instruction in Taxonomy. Why have botanic gardens merely senseless collections of confusing exotic plants that mean nothing to the visitor or student but a weird array of plant growth? Have part of the collection so arranged that one can start at one entrance and there meet the most primitive vascular plants. From these should diverge many different paths along plantings of more highly evolved genera until we reach a phylogenetic cul-de-sac. For example, why not work out such a logical group as the Piperales and Spadiciflorales in a planting? Begin with Saururus and Houttuynia if possible and have these lead on into Piper and Peperomia. Then follow up one of these lines into Araceae which would lead you logically into a beautiful collection of Araceae. One line could then go through Pistia into Spirodela, Lemna, and finally come to an end in Wolffia. The other line would double back to a plant like Monstera that develops pin-natifid leaves by the death of tissue. From here get into the typical palms through Evodiathus, Carludovica and Phytelophas. Then double back again to the Cyclanthaceae and make up a line with Freycinetia and Pandanus. Still another planting might arise near the base of the Pandanaceae which will go to Sparganium and finally peter out with Typha as the ultimate end of another evolutionary line. In general, I think, progressive evolutionary lines should lead forward while regressive lines, such as the one ending in Wolffia, should swing back toward the entrance of the garden.

It would be fascinating to work out even small evolutionary tendencies and equally fascinating for the visitor to follow them out if they were properly and fully labeled. It would certainly be very instructive to see the probable origin and ultimate modification of the corolla from Coptis through Aquilegia and Delphinium to its end in Aeonium. Such a display, if properly explained with labels, would move even some of your most rabid California fundamentalist into Evolutionists.