E-mail: dibyendutalukdar9@gmail.com

Department of Botany, R.P.M. College (www.rpmcollege.org), Hooghly, West Bengal, India developed a digital platform of dried & preserved herbarium plant specimens comprising medicinal & aromatic plants, RET plants and Invasive/alien plant species, cryptogams. The multifaceted research activities on algal floras and crop plants have been presented. A daily weather update link with IMD has also been provided. The platform is continuously up-graded and user-friendly with free web-accessible data bases. This is the first attempt by any under-graduate degree college in Eastern and N-E India to develop virtual herbarium through digital imaging and scientific documentation using software. More at:
http://www.rpmcdigitalphytoinformatics.com/ 

This 127-years old esteemed institution has initiated a novel effort unique to this region to digitize the dried and pressed plant specimens collected since 1961, status of current plant resources in and around Uttarpara region of Gangetic West Bengal, and plant resources/ information collected from the other parts of West Bengal, Eastern (Darjeeling, Sikkim, N-E) Himalayas & South India during field study and explorations. These regions are very rich in floral diversity, traditional knowledge on herbal medicine and resource utilization capacity. Apart from a virtual herbarium, this phytoinformatics center is currently housing data bases on MAP (Medicinal & Aromatic Plant), Invasive & Alien Plant, Endemic & RET (Rare, Endangered & Threatened) plant and a fair display of Cryptogams. A separate scientific documentation on ‘Flora of Uttarpara’ and ‘Algal Flora’ is in progress. Research activities & innovation have been manifested in departmental publications, suitably percolating to student projects & publications. Useful direct links and  have been provided for detail knowledge on worldwide information on Plant resources.

Photo Courtesy: http://www.rpmcdigitalphytoinformatics.com