Digital plant images as specimens: Toward standards for photographing living plants

Although specimens in natural history collections have traditionally been limited to physical objects, sets of images can serve many of the purposes of specimens if the images are collected in an appropriate manner. Image specimen sets should include standardized high resolution digital images of taxonomically important features of the organism, and the time, date, and location of image collection. Suggested image standards are presented here for woody and herbaceous angiosperms, gymnosperms, ferns, and cacti. Adoption of image standards will facilitate the creation of educational resources that can be made widely available through recently-developed electronic delivery methods such as the Internet and portable electronic devices