EMBRAPA AMAZÔNIA ORIENTAL HERBARY, PARÁ (IAN) Regina Célia Viana Martins-da-Silva, Silvane Tavares Rodrigues, Fernanda Ilkiu Borges de Souza, Sebastião Ribeiro Xavier Junior, Helena Joseane Raiol Souza

Abstract

 In 1945, the botanists João Murça Pires and William Archer founded the Herbarium of Agricultural Institute of the North, now Embrapa Amazônia Oriental, Belém, Pará. This Herbarium was internationally indexed with the acronym IAN. The main mission of this Herbarium is to generate knowledge and contribute to the management and conservation of the Amazon flora. This scientific collection is a valuable source of documentation and information about the Amazon, with nearly 193,000 specimens associated with samples of wood, flower, fruit, seed, and seedlings. There is an extensive collection of photographs of exsicates and about 3,000 nomenclatural types. Faced with the scientific importance of this large collection and the need to improve access to the scientific community, decision makers and society in general, a database was designed to streamline internal management  well as facilitating access to the data and images on the web.