The Atrium Team released a new iteration of Atrium known as the BRIT Digital Herbarium (http://atrium.brit.org) that includes representative collections from three different projects:
1. With support from two Native Plant Society of Texas (NPSOT) chapters (Trinity Forks and Fredricksburg), two summer internships were provided to students who scanned and databased specimens in the BRIT Herbarium from Denton and Gillespie counties. At least one specimen of each plant species held at BRIT from these two counties has now been digitized.
2. Atrium has also been used to share plant collection information obtained by staff members in their research. BRIT staff members Keri McNew Barfield and Tiana Franklin have placed their collection records into Atrium, along with live field images for plants they have collected at the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge.
3. The BRIT Type Collection has been digitized and data and images for this particularly valuable portion of the collection will now be available for use by researchers around the world. A type specimen is one that formed the basis of the original description of a plant name; BRIT has type specimens from all over the world and from many different plant families.
With this resource, any person wishing to obtain a botanist-confirmed, voucher-based list of species occurring in these two counties, collected through the BRIT Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge project, or within the BRIT Type Collection, will be able to acquire an up-to-date listing on the BRIT Atrium website. The specimens being digitized at BRIT are creating a new and valuable resource to anyone hoping to identify a plant or learn more about plants in Texas.
