Digital Diaspore Atlas of the Netherlands

Book excerpt: The Digital Diaspore Atlas of the Netherlands consists of a book and a website. With more than 2600 colour photographs, this atlas represents 1915 taxa and includes not only the wild plants of the Netherlands, but also adventitious plants and cultivated plants that have naturalized and are today found in the wild in the Netherlands. The selection of plant taxa is based on the 24th edition of Heukels' Flora van Nederland, following new insights into the phylogenetic classification of the angiosperms (as incorporated in APG IV). This atlas presents a unique view of the variation among-and characteristics of-the diaspores of the Dutch flora, and it is designed to be a tool to identify these diaspores. Three kinds of diaspores (dispersal units) are depicted: seeds, fruits, and anthocarps (meaning fruits with a conspicuous exocarp). Because the diaspores of many plants have clearly visible diagnostic characteristics, this diaspore atlas can also be used to identify seed-bearing plants via their ripe seeds, fruits, and anthocarps. This diaspore atlas will be of use to ecologists, plant taxonomists, palaeobotanists, those who work in seed testing, and florists-both within and outside the Netherlands. The quality of the photos has been improved over that of the Digital Seed Atlas of the Netherlands through our use of a Leica M125 C stereomicroscope with motorfocus system, a Leica MC190 HD microscope camera, the software las 4.13.0, and Adobe Photoshop 2019 for stacking and photo editing. This book is a publication of the Digital Plant Atlas project, a collaboration among palaeobotanists and ecologists of the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, in the Netherlands, and the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, in Berlin, Germany. The project aims to make plant reference collections accessible to a broader public of professional and amateur users via its website, www.plantatlas.eu. This website offers the opportunity to examine photographs of plant parts (including diaspores) and of processes related to agricultural practices and food processing in more detail, using its extensive search tools. The other publications of the Digital Plant Atlas project can also be found on this website.