by: Scott A. Mori and Melissa Tulig (NYBG) and Jean-Jacques de Granville, Sophie González, Véronique Guerin, Hervé Chevillotte (IRD), and Jérôme Chave (CNRS)

The New York Botanical Garden (NY), The Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) are working together to produce a data base driven, specimen based, illustrated checklist of the flowering plants of the Nouragues Nature Reserve that will be the first step in a French coordinated effort to produce an electronic flora of French Guiana. The goals of this project are to:

1. Continue the inventory of the plants of the reserve by making high quality herbarium specimens that will serve as vouchers for DNA collections; images of flowers, fruits, and seedlings; and as documentation of the presence of a species in the reserve.
2. Attach images of herbarium specimens, botanical line illustrations, and digital images to the records of the specimens serving as vouchers for them.
3. Select representative images and attach them to the names of species documented to occur in the reserve.
4. Prepare an electronic, illustrated key to the families of flowering plants known to occur in the reserve.
5. Prepare an e-flora for the Arecaceae and Lecythidaceae of French Guiana to serve as models for treatments of other families to be included in an eventual e-flora for all of French Guiana.

As information accumulates in the Virtual Herbarium of The New York Botanical Garden it will be transferred to the Aublet2 data base of IRD. One of the reasons for establishing this project is to transfer the information gathered by S. A. Mori and his collaborators on the flora of French Guiana to IRD so it can serve in the preparation of an electronic flora for all of French Guiana.

For those wishing to learn more about the Nouragues Nature Reserve click here.