Selbyana 28(2): 210-211. 2007, NOTICE THE SWISS ORCHID FOUNDATION AT THE HERBARIUM JANY RENZ SAMUEL SPRUNGER Curator of the Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Herbarium Jany Renz Institute of Botany University of Basel Schoenbeinstr, 6, CH-4056 Basel, Switzerland, Email: [email protected] ABSTRACT: To celebrate the 100th birthday of the famous orchidologist Jany Renz and the seven years of activity of the Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Herbarium Jany Renz, we are pleased to inform the public about the state of affairs at the Foundation, When Jany Renz died in 1999 he bequeathed the Botanic Institute at the Basel University, of his herbarium and his library to the University the Botanic Association Basel, and the historic of Basel, and in 2001, the Swiss Orchid Foun orchid collection of Bernoulli and Cario avail dation at the Herbarium Jany Renz was founded, able, With the approximately 5000 hand-colored The aims of the Foundation are to maintain and drawings from Renz' library still to be digita curate the legacy of Jany Renz and to make his lized and other graphic materials that are pro collection available to a worldwide audience, vided by authors from all over the world, the After the registration and digitalization of all Swiss Orchid Foundation hopes to present as herbarium specimens, books and separates, the complete a version as possible of the World Or approximately 20,000 herbarium specimens of chid Iconography. the Renz collection are online at www,orchid, In order to catalog new records including easy unibas,ch, georeferencing, researchers designed a stable For systematic-taxonomic research, herbari and flexible system based on the internet pro ums are important sources for revisions, mono gramming language PHP and the database graphs, and lately DNA to perform phylogenetic MySQL® in 2005, The World Orchid Iconogra analyses, Herbarium specimens are often the last phy is maintained and continuously updated by evidence of long destroyed vegetation, Further civilian workers under the direction of Dr, h.c, more, the herbarium specimens of Jany Renz are Samuel Sprunger, of excellent aesthetics and quality, Over a hun Currently the website of the Swiss Orchid dred of them are type specimens of his new clas Foundation at the Herbarium Jany Renz contains sifications, The section of the website on modem about 36,000 pictures with updated nomencla reference literature is complete and therefore a ture from all over the world. All orchids from very valuable base for orchid research. The sep arates-collection, consisting of roughly 5000 sci Europe, Asia Minor, and Northern Africa are entific articles about orchids, comes from differ virtually available either as herbarium speci ent sources and represents an outstanding rich mens, hand-colored drawings, or photographs. and complete collection of orchid literature, This picture library is an important instrument Both collections are integrated in the index of for scientists, non-professionals, enthusiasts, and the Basel University Library http://aleph. cultivators worldwide in order to get access to unibas,ch, visual and nomenclatural information on or After having inventoried the Jany Renz's sci chids. entific cultural heritage, the Foundation decided Furthermore, all visitors to the website of the to make the whole collection virtually available Foundation have free access to the BibJi worldwide. Along with informative articles Orchidea, a comprehensive database with about the Foundation and Dr. Jany Renz, the 140,000 records and thus 80% of the worldwide website of the Foundation offers access to the available orchid literature, This database is 26,000 herbarium specimens from all over the maintained and continuously updated by the or world. It also makes the collections of Renz, of chidologist Dr. Rudolph Jenny, The publishing 210 SPRUNGER: HERBARIUM JANY RENZ 211 FIGURE 1. Herbarium sheet number 4192 of Encyclia tampensis Small at the Herbarium Jany Renz. scientist, as well as the interested hobby-orchi tions using a taxon-declaration. The results of dologist, will find publications not only by title, the search are additionally documented with pic author and publishing year, but also by a differ tures from the database of the Swiss Orchid entiated subject catalogue and first determina- Foundation.