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 18 · DO #1164 · 27_Morrison_Bx7FF8r

Collection
Benjamin Yoe Morrison (1891–1966) papers
Item/Folder
Report on a trip to Colombia, 1943–1944
Digital Object
DO #1164, page 18
Collection-level dates
1915–1965, n.d.
Open PDF at page 18 ↗

Page transcription

-12-

Visits near Medellín

Rio Negro sub-station. This is a small nursery station for the production of fruit trees, about two hours out of Medellín on the road to Rio Negro. It is a small station with few facilities, almost no staff, and a general atmosphere of neglect.

Apparently all fruits are propagated either by cuttings or are grafted on stocks which are raised from cuttings, quince or plum.

As a practice grafting takes precedence over budding and no effort seems to be made to keep the unions near the ground level. Stocks are irregular in size and apparently in age.

Cuttings are placed thickly in rows, the rows spaced about 5 inches apart, in "Dutch" beds raised slightly above the level of soil. No shade was given and no mulches are used to make the moisture conditions uniform. In "good" seasons practically perfect stands are obtained. The rooted cutting is then transplanted to nursery row for budding or grafting. Since there is no period in which the stock is dormant as we understand that term, the degree of success obtained is even more surprising.

There were a few citrus present, but no great number in propagation. A very fair number of figs from cuttings were the chief novelties. Small patches of lentils, garbanzas (chick peas), broad beans, and potatoes were the only side lines, although there were also some small patches of forage legumes.

The general impression of the station was that the propagator or caretaker was not "on the job 24 hours a day" as all good propagators should be.

On the way to find this small station, we stopped at a private place where apples are grown for sale of fruits.

The orchard was given almost gardenlike care, with the trees planted in cultivated circles cut in grass lawn. Each tree was trained so that its low head was spread outward from the central axis, the extremities of the branches being tied to a bamboo hoop about 2 feet from the soil level, like a little fence surrounding each circular plot. This enforced position was said to interfere with the free flow of sap and check the rampant growth of wood. To induce some degree of uniform flowering, it was the practice to strip the trees of leaves (in January at this place) so that the constantly flowing sap would make an immediate effect upon the flower buds on the fruiting spurs.