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Requests - Documenting Herbarium Specimens from Home / Report of overseas field meeting 41Documenting Herbarium Specimens from Home - Can You Help?LEANDER WOLSTENHOLME & TOM HUMPHREY, The Manchester Museum, Oiford Road, ManchesterM139PLThe UK has the world's largest and oldestcollections of herbarium specimens held in trustby museums and universities. As a record ofplant biodiversity this resource is unparalleledand could be vital for future studies oftaxonomy, ecology, conservation and geneticbiodiversity.Documenting large herbarium collections isan extremely labour-intensive task and mostmuseum collections are woefully under-funded.Consequently, most of the specimens areundocumented and unavailable becauseadequate resources and time to properly recordthe collections have never been available. Thisis a terrible waste.The Botanical Collection Managers Group(who represent herbaria for UK and Ireland) areexperimenting with an idea to try and getherbarium collections documented by invitingpeople at home to use their own computers toenter the data from labels on digital images ofspecimens posted onto a website.With the support and expertise of 'virtualvolunteers' we think can realistically documentthe entire herbarium collections of even majorinstitutions. For example, if 100 people agree todocument 10 specimens per week. That worksout at 1000 per week, 52,000 per year!To see if the scheme will actually work, wehave launched a pilot project. We have approximately1800 images of British and Irish hybridsfrom the herbarium at The Manchester Museumon a website and we would be very grateful if asmany people as possible would have a go atdocumenting specimens on-line.This project is open to everyone. You do notneed any particular botanical knowledge orexperience to take part.The website address is www.herbariaunited.org/atHome/. Have a go and good luck!REPORT OF OVERSEAS FIELD MEETING - 2006Western Portugal, 19 th to 26 th MarchTERESA F ARINO and various members of the groupFourteen members escaped the British winterand flew to Lisbon for a week to explorewestern Portugal. Although the weather let usdown on occasion, we explored a series of interestinghabitats, from limestone rock-gardens toAtlantic sand-dunes, and from salt-marsh toCork Oak montados, encountering a wide rangeof southern European spring flowers in theprocess.19 March - Samouco and Sapal das HortasThe group was met by Teresa Farino and JohnMuddeman at Lisbon airport and was quicklytransported over the impressive Vasco da Gamasuspension bridge (built for Expo '98) acrossthe River Tejo, to arrive (albeit via a rathertortuous route) at the Samouco beach on thesouth side ofthe estuary. Whilst enjoying a latelunch, we were able to observe Greater Flamingo,Cattle Egret, Dunlin, Ringed Plover andSandwich Tern, after which we wanderedslowly along the shoreline in search of colonisingpsammophiles.We were able to recognise British speciessuch as Cakile maritima (Sea Rocket), Lupinusangustifolius (Narrow-leaved Lupin), Echiumplantagineum (Purple Viper's-bugloss,extremely rare in the UK) and Anisanthadiandra (Great Brome), growing together withquite a few not found in Britain: Malcolmialittorea (Sand Stock), Emex spinosa (Emex), thebeautiful, deep-blue Iberian endemic Anchusacalcarea, a large-flowered yellow toadflaxLinaria spartea, Arctotheca calendula (plainTreasureflower, a yellow composite native toSouth Africa), and the distinctive grass Cutandiamaritima.We then drove a few kilometres to the east,through the town of A1cochete, to the saltmarshand wet pastures behind the shore at Sapal dasHortas. The distinctive crowns of Pinus pinea(Stone or Umbrella Pine) topped a nearby ridge,while the marshy areas were home to Atriplexhalimus (Shrubby Orache), a fine-leaved sealavenderLimonium ferulaceum, the wormwoodArtemisia caerulescens and Triglochin bulbosa(Bulbous Arrow-grass). Sandy areas nearbysupported Crassula tillaea (Mossy Stonecrop),Lathyrus ochrus (Winged Vetchling), Cotulacoronopifolia (Buttonweed: another SouthAfrican invader), Gynandriris sisyrinchium