Introduction

The Azores Virtual Herbarium (AVH) is a resource for biologists, biogeographers and conservationsinists and provides details of herbarium specimens of plants endemic to the Azores.

The Azores is a volcanic, oceanic archipelago, located in the North Atlantic Ocean between 36ºN and 40ºN and 1700km west from Portugal. The archipelago consists of nine volcanic islands that are the result of complicated hotspot volcanic processes since ca. 5-6Ma related to the confluence of three plates: the American, Eurasian and African (Abdel-Monem et al, 1975; Avila et al, 2012).

The native flora of the Azores is species-poor compared to other oceanic archipelagos of the North Atlantic such as Madeira and the Canaries. Schaefer (2003) classified only 197 species as indigenous (24%). In the most recent checklist of Azorean vascular plants there are a total of 1110 vascular plant taxa, of which only 73 taxa are considered endemic. Humans have had a profound impact on the native vegetation and today, between 0 and 11% of native vegetation remains on the islands (Borges and Hortal, 2009).

The AVH database contains details of specimens from the following herbaria:

Museu Carlos Machado (AZ)
Universidade Dos Açores, Ponta Delgada, Portugal (AZB)
Universidade dos Açores, Angra do Heroísmo, Portugal (AZU)
Natural History Museum, London, UK (BM)
Natural History Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark (C)
University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal (COI)
Harvard University, Massachusetts, USA (GH)
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London, UK (K)
Estação Agronómica Nacional, Oeiras, Portugal (LISE)
Instituto Superior de Agronomia. Lisboa Portugal (LISI)
Museu Nacional de História Natural, Lisboa, Portugal (LISU)
University of Manchester, Manchester, UK (MANCH)
University of Oxford, Oxford, UK (OXF)

The following information is provided for each specimen (where available):

Herbaria (including duplications), Family, Taxon name, Author, Island collected, Day, month and year collected, Collector's name, Collector's number.

The AVH team

Natural History Museum, London (BM): Katy Jones, a PhD student in the Life Sciences Department, was responsible for the compilation of much of the data included in the AVH. Katy is working on diversity patterns in the endemic flora of the Azores with Mark Carine who initiated the project. Also at NHM, Bob Press (now retired) made available his database of Azorean plant specimens.
Departamento de Biologia, Universidade dos Açores (AZB): Ana Neto, Mónica Moura and Luís Silva contributed specimen data and host AVH. has helped develop BRAHMS online.
Departamento de Ciências Agrárias, Universidade dos Açores (AZU): Rui Bento Elias contributed specimen data.
Museu Carlos Machado, Ponta Delgada (AZ): João Constância contributed specimen data. Biodiversität der Pflanzen, Technischen Universität München: Hanno Schaefer contributed specimen data and expert advice on the Azores flora.

Acknowledgments

We are very grateful to all of the following who have helped in the development of the project: Denis Filer, University of Oxford (developer of BRAHMS and BRAHMS online); Fatima Sales (COI), Isabel Saraiva (LISE), Anabel Isabel Correira (LISU). Maria Caixinhas (LISI), James Soloman (MO), Rachel Webster (MANCH), Serena Marner (OXF) for access to Azorean collections in their respective herbaria; Maria Manuel Romeiras for helping to co ordinate Katy Jones' visits to herbaria in Lisbon.