Welcome to the data portal for the Pteridophyte Collections Consortium (PCC)! Pteridophytes (ferns, lycophytes, and their extinct seed-free relatives) are a diverse group of plants that today comprises approximately 12,000 species and plays a major role in terrestrial ecosystems. Pteridophytes were even more important in the past, especially before the evolution of the gymnosperms and the flowering plants. This group of land plants was the first to evolve roots and leaves, the first to colonize drier habitats, and the first to form forests.
Historically, the research communities interested in living pteridophytes and those studying the fossil ones were largely separate from each other. The extant and fossil specimens were housed in different facilities (herbaria and paleontological museums, respectively) and their researchers often worked in different departments. The PCC was created to promote the integration of these communities by bringing together specimen data and associated resources for both living and fossil pteridophytes.
This portal provides one-stop access to digitized fossil and herbarium pteridophyte specimens, and their associated data. Initially these data will be from the collections of our core 36 PCC member institutions. However, in the future we hope to include collections from new PCC-affiliated institutions, and to partner with other institutions worldwide to serve their data through the PCC portal.
For more information about pteridophytes or the PCC, please visit our PCC website and follow us on Facebook and Twitter. For questions, comments, or to join the PCC portal, contact the Symbiota Support Hub (email@example.com).
The PCC, and this data portal, were made possible by funding from the National Science Foundation’s Advancing Digitization of Biological Collections (ADBC) program, grant numbers 1802504, 1802352, 1802134, 1802033, 1802270, 1802255, 1802239, 1802446, 1802305.
The pteridoportal taxonomic thesaurus is based on the Checklist of Ferns and Lycophytes of the World, generously provided by Michael Hassler.