​With the end of each academic year, we in the CAP Network often find ourselves reflecting: what have we accomplished? How have we grown? We are happy to share this reflection with you, the community that has supported us and helped us get things done. There is yet much to do, but look how far we've come!

These collections come in many shapes and sizes, from the small, localized Sagehen Creek Field Station (just over 1,800 specimens) to the massive holdings of the Jepson and University Herbaria at UC Berkeley (over 560,000 digitized vascular plant records to date). Thirty-three CCH2 collections (56%) contain fewer than 10,000 digitized specimens, and eight (14%) consist of fewer than 1,000! Although smaller in size, these herbaria are vital sources of often unique, specialized collections that document specific regions or the activities of lesser-known collectors. They fill critical gaps in our understanding of these special places (Monfils et al. 2020), yet are often in greater peril of shutting down due to lack of funding or attention. The infrastructure and community bolstered by the CAP Network and the Consortium of California Herbaria may help these smaller collections gain the recognition and help they deserve.

Perhaps the most obvious metric of CCH success is the sheer number of herbarium specimens now digitized and available in our data portal. Many herbarium collections were never previously digitized or had never made their data public, resulting in data silos and massive unrealized potential. Now researchers and the public have access to 3.1 million herbarium specimen records of over 82,000 species across the world, and these numbers continue to grow each day.

Imaging specimens has been one of the most urgent goals of the CAP Network. With funding from this NSF grant, we purchased and assembled 17 imaging stations across the state. Not only can these critical tools be used to digitize the historic holdings of collections, but herbaria can now fold digitization into their accessioning pipelines, meaning that present and future specimen data will enter the public sphere more rapidly after collection. Indeed, we currently have over 550 records from 2021!

Images of physical specimens have the potential to unlock new discoveries as researchers can now view specimens across institutions side-by-side and measure individual specimens' traits. Broader communities across California and all over the world can now use specimen images to learn how to identify plants, where plants occur, and differences among plant populations. Specimen images are a huge and compelling resource for science and society, connecting us to the living things we find in our daily lives. We're excited for another year of advancing and enhancing this resource...and hopefully long into the future!

​Botanists and naturalists across the state are banding together to deepen our knowledge of where California plants have historically occurred. In September 2020, the California Phenology (CAP) Network launched the “100 Club,” a team of experts who are trained to “georeference” herbarium specimen records in CCH2 (cch2.org), a new data portal that serves vascular plant data from California herbaria. Members of the 100 Club have experience with one or more geographical areas, and they use this expertise to translate textual descriptions of specimen locations into latitude and longitude coordinates: dots on a map.
The CAP Network aims to georeference 300,000 herbarium specimens by 2022, and they are well on the way to achieving that goal; however, producing accurate georeferences is often challenging. This is where the expertise of local experts comes into play.
“Anyone can read a label and put a dot on the map, but in order for that dot to be accurate, you need people who know an area well. There is no re- placement for local knowledge about a place,” says Jenn Yost, professor at California Polytechnic State University and lead PI of the CAP Network. “Many of our labels refer to place names not found on any map, but if it’s your backyard, you’ll know right where it is.”
To date, the 100 Club includes 28 active members representing many vocations and locations, from self-taught botanists, to ecological consultants, to professional botanists and taxonomists, each with expertise ranging from Baja California to the Pacific Northwest. Similarly, specimens in CCH2 originate from across the state and even the globe, underscoring the importance of a diversity of experienced georeferencers. Together, the 100 Club has georeferenced over 8,000 specimen records in only a few months, yet the process has been anything but tedious.
“For me, georeferencing is a multidimensional experience,” explains Chris Hauser, manager of the Panoche Valley Preserve and avid 100 Club Member. “When I’m georeferencing an herbarium specimen, it’s as if I’m above tree line at 10,000 feet in the mountains with Dean Taylor or walking through a dark coast redwood forest with Jeff Norman. I can almost hear the wind in the trees, smell the vegetation, and feel the soil under my feet.”

​Georeferencing herbarium specimens can be an adventure into the past as members explore historical collecting locations—parks, forests, mountains, valleys, and preserves—some of which no longer exist in their natural state. Georeferencers also become familiar with historical and recent collectors, their collecting patterns, and their label styles. Each specimen is like a time capsule, embodying the tireless efforts of passionate people and their botanical escapades.
The CAP Network invites everyone with some naturalist experience to join the historical exploration by becoming part of the 100 Club. Each member completes the CAP Network’s online georeferencing training course and receives live, virtual training via Zoom. As members begin to work in the CCH2 portal, they are fully supported through additional training and communication. To sign up, fill out the interest form here: tinyurl.com/37c3m5xb.
Thanks to the dedicated efforts of this group of naturalists, more herbarium specimens are georeferenced each day, helping us build a more comprehensive understanding of where and when plants have occurred across California and beyond. These data are critical in the face of a changing climate and potential effects of those changes on California’s precious plant diversity.