Sarasin Vettern

Paul und Fritz Sarasin

Hermann Christ

Hermann Christ

Many of the first descriptions of plants were based on material stemming from adventurous collection expeditions and remarkable personalities, such as the famous Sarasin cousins (Fritz & Paul, 1850s-1940s) from Basel, who profoundly impacted cultural and natural history and conservation. Sadly, their botanical collections, many from southeast Asia, were neglected compared to their famous zoological and ethnographic collections, even though they are critically important for taxonomy. For instance, Hermann Christ (1833-1933) described many new fern species from these collections. Yet, historic neglect and lack of digitalization renders them inaccessible to present-day science. 

In this project, we unlock the botanical treasure trove of the Sarasin cousins by conditioning, taxonomic updating, and digitizing thousands of Sarasin specimens in the Herbaria Basel and the United Herbaria Zurich. By expanding our digitization efforts to additional fern specimens in our herbaria, we will make 60'000 digital specimens publicly available for science and society.