Africa’s herbarium collections—pressed, dried and mounted plant specimens—are being highlighted as a major scientific resource that needs digitisation. These records include plants collected centuries ago and still stored in university and biodiversity institute collections.
Across outlets, the central point is that herbarium specimens preserve information about where species occur and how ecosystems change over time. Digitising these data makes them easier to access for researchers and helps safeguard knowledge as biodiversity declines.
The coverage largely converges on the same justification—specimen information is at risk of being lost or remaining inaccessible without digital records. The outlets do not present contrasting findings, but they differ mainly in emphasis: some focus on the hidden nature of the collections and the historical value of specimens, while others stress the urgency of mobilising the information before further biodiversity loss occurs.
