Janick, J., Department of Horticulture, Landscape Architecture, Purdue University, 625 Agriculture Mall Drive, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2010, United States
Whipkey, A., Department of Horticulture, Landscape Architecture, Purdue University, 625 Agriculture Mall Drive, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2010, United States
Paris, H.S., Agricultural Research Organization, Newe ya'Ar Research Center, P.O. Box 1021, Ramat Yishay 30-095, Israel
Daunay, M.-C., INRA, Unité de Génétique, Amélioration des Fruits et Légumes, Domaine St-Maurice BP 94, 84143 Montfavet cedex, France
Jullian, E., INRA, Unité de Génétique, Amélioration des Fruits et Légumes, Domaine St-Maurice BP 94, 84143 Montfavet cedex, France

The systematic collection of plant iconography would be an invaluable resource to researchers, providing significant information on taxonomy, crop history and evolution, lost traits and genetic diversity. To this end, a "Plant Image" project is being organized to assemble a searchable database of plant images, focusing on the Solanaceae and Cucurbitaceae. Searches have been made from various sources including art (mosaics, paintings and sculpture), illustrated manuscripts, and hand illustrated and printed herbals and books. We are concentrating our search on antiquity (Old and New World), Medieval and Renaissance sources but we intend to include more recent images as well. Bibliographic information on primary and secondary sources will be associated with each image and, in the case of herbals, associated text material will eventually be included. We hope to receive images and information from all individuals interested in the Solanaceae and Cucurbitaceae, so that the database will be a living dynamic document. The working database is online: www.hort.purdue.edu/ newcrop/iconography.