Diatoms of North America
The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (ANSP) has been one of the important centers of diatom studies in the U.S. since the 19th century. In 1950's, Dr. Ruth Patrick assembled personal collections of F.W. Lewis, C. Febiger, J.A. Shulze, F.J. Keeley, and C.S. Boyer into a single Diatom Herbarium. Dr. Charles Reimer, the Curator of the Herbarium for almost 50 years, together with Dr. Patrick developed the Herbarium into a key resource for diatom research. Contributors and members of the Editorial Review Board for the Diatoms of the United States regularly participating in taxonomic workshops held at the Diatom Herbarium and use its resources to clarify various taxonomic problems and to create taxa pages.
The goal of the project supported by the National Science Foundation was to make the resources of ANSP Diatom Herbarium easily accessible to scientists. The current Herbarium staff members created a new online database, which includes a gallery of images of type specimens. Imaging of type specimens led to re-evaluation of several taxa, the results of which were published in the scientific literature and contributed to this online flora. The reorganization of the Herbarium that includes re-housing of the materials, entering data into database, and georeferencing is on-going.
