Enter the details of the specimens you are trying to locate in the appropriate fields and click "Search Catalogue".
Entries can be either upper or lower case.
'*' can be used as wildcard character at the beginning, end or within any of any search values.
For example, to search for all genera starting with 'Gent', enter gent* in the genus field.
Multiple search criteria in the same field should be separated by the word 'or'.
For example, to look up both Gentiana and Rhododendron, enter gentiana or rhododendron in the Genus field.
Searching by collector
When running a search for records based on collector or expedition name the underlying database uses a 'free text index' which results in slightly different behaviour to the other fields. A free text index breaks down both
the indexed values and any search terms run against it into individual words and then runs a search of the collectors field in the following manner:
A single word search term with or without wildcards will behave as normal.
Multiple query terms without wild cards will be searched for exactly and the results will be anded together.
eg. A search for Charles Darwin will return all records in which the collector field contains the words Charles and Darwin.
Multiple query terms with wild cards will be searched for individually and results for terms with a wild card will be ored with the results from terms without wild cards
eg. A search for Darwin C* will return all records which contain the word Darwin OR that contain a word starting with C. This is probably counter intuitive and will most likely generate a
broader result set than anticipated.
More intuitive behaviour with respect to mixed wildcard and non-wildcard terms in a collector query can be obtained by including an indication of the desired logical relationship between terms in the query as part of the query term.
eg. A search term of 'Darwin and C*' (quotes not included in the term) will return all records with a collector string containing the word Darwin AND a word begining with C.
N.B. Searches of the collector index are order insensitive. ie. A search for Charles Darwin and a search for Darwin Charles will return the same result.
Nagoya Protocol Compliance
Please note that from 12th October 2014 plant material requested from RBGE may be subject to Prior Informed Consent from the country of origin.
Any permissions and conditions of use will be advised before release and if there are any restrictions it will not be made available.
