Development of virtual Herbarium in higher plants

Herbarium is a dried plant specimen comprises of complete plant parts with key characteristics, which can be used for identification and classification. In this research, the normal herbarium is transformed into digital on-line which can be visualized in high resolution image with detail notes incorporated. The origin of the plants, their uses and the details of the plant parts will be included. ADDIE model was used in the development. A basic Joomla software was used in the development of virtual herbarium. The plants for the herbarium were collected from various places including forest reserves and villages. The image of plant specimens were captured intact and dissected. The flower formula is described in details by incorporating 3-D intact and dissected flower parts. Every angle of the flower is animated. Keywords were linked in order to be recalled when it is necessary. The herbarium can be accessed and studied by school students, universities, and researchers, who interested in plant naming and identification. To date, there is no virtual herbarium done on the Malaysia plants, even though, our plant biodiversity is recorded to be among the richest in the world. The awareness towards the importance of plant diversity needs to be inculcated in the new generation. Thus, this research objectives are to develop and document a prototype of a virtual herbarium for higher plant species, as the basic purposes of plant identification, classificaton, research, as well as the first Malaysia online plant database.