With more than 1 million vascular plant specimens, Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden herbarium (RSA-POM) is the largest and most active botanical collection in California south of San Francisco, and among the ten largest herbaria in the United States. Recognizing the critical need for ready and efficient access to specimen data, especially in digitized form over the World Wide Web, retrospective databasing of RSA-POM's specimens has become a major focus of herbarium activities since the late 1990s. Initially considerable emphasis was placed on entering specimens of taxa considered rare or endangered by state and federal agencies, and the California Native Plant Society (CNPS) , and secondarily on entering general collections from southern California. By mid- to late 2000, > 65,000 RSA-POM specimen records had been digitized. More than 177,000 RSA-POM specimen records have been entered to date, including those imported from the older system. This total includes 117,800 sheets from the State's southernmost seven counties, more than half of the estimated 217,300 southern California sheets in RSA-POM. In addition, ca 42,200 specimens from central and northern California have been entered, as well as nearly all known or presumed types at RSA-POM.
The RSA-POM Specien database went online in October of 2005. We now have over 100,000 records to search. Click hereto search the RSA-POM Specimen Database.
Our data is also available one the Consortium of California Herbaria website.