{
  "id": 3589322,
  "title": "Africa's herbarium collections are a scientific treasure. They need to be digitized before more biodiversity is lost",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/26/africas-herbarium-collections-are-a-scientific-treasure-they-need-to",
  "topic": "science",
  "section": "Science",
  "published": "2026-08-26T20:40:05.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Phys.org",
    "slug": "phys-org",
    "url": "https://phys.org/news/2026-08-africa-herbarium-scientific-treasure-digitized.html"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": null,
  "summary": "Universities and biodiversity institutes have hidden treasures: their collections of pressed plant specimens. These plants have been flattened, dried and mounted on special cardboard sheets. Some were collected centuries ago. They hold information about where species occur and how ecosystems have changed over time.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}