Journeys
The expeditions, reassembled
Every dated label is a diary entry. Read a collector’s labels in order and the voyage comes back: the islands in sequence, the days at each, the specimens from every stop. 3 journeys so far, 1921 to 1923, 335 specimens between them.
2 collectors and expeditions39 days in the field824 km between stops224 photographed specimens
3 journeys match
D. Wesley Garber
Tau and Olosega · Dec 1921 – Jan 1922
D. Wesley Garber in Tau and Olosega, December 1921 – January 1922133 specimens · 10 stops · 45 days



Otto Herman Swezey
6 islands · Jul – Sep 1923
Otto Herman Swezey across 6 islands, July – September 192395 specimens · 15 stops · 64 days · 824 km
D. Wesley Garber
Tau and Savaii · Aug – Sep 1921
D. Wesley Garber in Tau and Savaii, August – September 1921107 specimens · 11 stops · 48 days
How a journey is found
Every specimen with a full date and a known collector is a diary entry. The days are read in order; a gap of more than three weeks ends one journey and starts the next. Days spent where a collector lived most of their life are home, not travel, and are left out.
A journey needs at least five days, forty specimens and two places. Within it, a run of days spent within about ten kilometres is one stop; the stop’s point is the middle of the labels that carry coordinates, or the island’s centre when none do.
Companions are the people whose own labels put them in the same place on the same days. Staff can name a journey, write about it and feature it; everything else here is read straight off the specimens, and is rebuilt as the records improve.
