Hello,
I am a computer scientist who has a deep passion for orchids. My
parents grew several orchids where I grew up (Thailand), way back in
the 60's. Our fence at the front part of the property lined with 8-9
feet long poles covered with coconut husk and grew Vanda on them.
They are very common in Thailand. I don't know what species, but the
plants grew as tall as the poles and flowered profusely. The leaves
were thin about 10 cm long with round cross section. We had several
other kinds of orchids too, mostly natives of Thailand.

I now live in Maryland near DC. I have spent fortune over the years
trying to grow several orchids I bought from local nurseries and
internet. But I wasn't successful. They all eventually died. But
even with all these failed attempt, my love for orchids has never
faded. I decided to turn to studying them instead of growing them.
My new goal is to build a web-site that I (or any site visitors) to
search the database that stores taxonomy and various characteristics
of each species. For instance, people could request: "find all
orchids with red lip, yellow petals, 2-3 cm in size,....." etc.
The response would be the list of species that match, or fuzzy match
these characteristics. I hope to also show pictures that I collected
over the years from the internet. Probably those that some of you
took. But I need to work out the intellectual property issue first
before I can do that.

My questions to the community a
1) Would this be useful to you?
2) Is there a website(s) that has comprehensive list of orchid
taxonomy? I have looked at several sites including wikipedia, which
are very useful, but I haven't yet found an authoritative and
comprehensive site.
3) This is a stupid question: I found several differentiations
between sites on the species name: e.g. dayana vs dayanum, coccinea vs
coccineum, aurea vs aureum,... and many more. What is the standard
practice when it comes to choosing which version to use?

Thanks,
pax

packat wrote:
Hello,
I am a computer scientist who has a deep passion for orchids. My
parents grew several orchids where I grew up (Thailand), way back in
the 60's. Our fence at the front part of the property lined with 8-9
feet long poles covered with coconut husk and grew Vanda on them.
They are very common in Thailand. I don't know what species, but the
plants grew as tall as the poles and flowered profusely. The leaves
were thin about 10 cm long with round cross section. We had several
other kinds of orchids too, mostly natives of Thailand.

I now live in Maryland near DC. I have spent fortune over the years
trying to grow several orchids I bought from local nurseries and
internet. But I wasn't successful. They all eventually died. But
even with all these failed attempt, my love for orchids has never
faded. I decided to turn to studying them instead of growing them.
My new goal is to build a web-site that I (or any site visitors) to
search the database that stores taxonomy and various characteristics
of each species. For instance, people could request: "find all
orchids with red lip, yellow petals, 2-3 cm in size,....." etc.
The response would be the list of species that match, or fuzzy match
these characteristics. I hope to also show pictures that I collected
over the years from the internet. Probably those that some of you
took. But I need to work out the intellectual property issue first
before I can do that.

My questions to the community a
1) Would this be useful to you?
2) Is there a website(s) that has comprehensive list of orchid
taxonomy? I have looked at several sites including wikipedia, which
are very useful, but I haven't yet found an authoritative and
comprehensive site.
3) This is a stupid question: I found several differentiations
between sites on the species name: e.g. dayana vs dayanum, coccinea vs
coccineum, aurea vs aureum,... and many more. What is the standard
practice when it comes to choosing which version to use?

Thanks,
pax

The site most of us use now to look up a species is this:
http://www.orchidspecies.com/
Now, if you could do what you say you want to do and make it searchable
by a description, that would be most useful when we have no idea what an
orchid is. With the site above, a person needs to have an educated guess
about what the genus is, in order to find a plant.
I'm not sure that you realize what a massive project this would be. Look
at the size of the orchid species site and you will have a good idea.
As far as your questions about names... the species name needs to match
the gender of the genus name. Sometimes scientists decide to place a
plant in a different genus. If the new genus has a different gender, the
species name needs to change to reflect that.

Steve

"Steve" wrote in message
...
packat wrote:
Hello,
I am a computer scientist who has a deep passion for orchids. My
parents grew several orchids where I grew up (Thailand), way back in
the 60's. Our fence at the front part of the property lined with 8-9
feet long poles covered with coconut husk and grew Vanda on them.
They are very common in Thailand. I don't know what species, but the
plants grew as tall as the poles and flowered profusely. The leaves
were thin about 10 cm long with round cross section. We had several
other kinds of orchids too, mostly natives of Thailand.

I now live in Maryland near DC. I have spent fortune over the years
trying to grow several orchids I bought from local nurseries and
internet. But I wasn't successful. They all eventually died. But
even with all these failed attempt, my love for orchids has never
faded. I decided to turn to studying them instead of growing them.
My new goal is to build a web-site that I (or any site visitors) to
search the database that stores taxonomy and various characteristics
of each species. For instance, people could request: "find all
orchids with red lip, yellow petals, 2-3 cm in size,....." etc.
The response would be the list of species that match, or fuzzy match
these characteristics. I hope to also show pictures that I collected
over the years from the internet. Probably those that some of you
took. But I need to work out the intellectual property issue first
before I can do that.

My questions to the community a
1) Would this be useful to you?
2) Is there a website(s) that has comprehensive list of orchid
taxonomy? I have looked at several sites including wikipedia, which
are very useful, but I haven't yet found an authoritative and
comprehensive site.
3) This is a stupid question: I found several differentiations
between sites on the species name: e.g. dayana vs dayanum, coccinea vs
coccineum, aurea vs aureum,... and many more. What is the standard
practice when it comes to choosing which version to use?

Thanks,
pax

The site most of us use now to look up a species is this:
http://www.orchidspecies.com/
Now, if you could do what you say you want to do and make it searchable by
a description, that would be most useful when we have no idea what an
orchid is. With the site above, a person needs to have an educated guess
about what the genus is, in order to find a plant.
I'm not sure that you realize what a massive project this would be. Look
at the size of the orchid species site and you will have a good idea.
As far as your questions about names... the species name needs to match
the gender of the genus name. Sometimes scientists decide to place a plant
in a different genus. If the new genus has a different gender, the species
name needs to change to reflect that.

Steve


Pax, if you want to get involved with databases, maybe you should ask Jay
Pfahl http://www.orchidspecies.com if he wants help with his site or ask
Alex Maximano if he wants help with Orchid Wiz http://www.orchidwiz.com, or
ask the American Orchid Society if they want help with their site
http://www.aos.org. Goodness knows the AOS always needs talent. Otherwise
its kinda hard to compete with the Google search engine. If I want to know
anything I just google the term and usually I find it to any depth of
interest.

K Barrett

Pax, I admire your ambition. But truly, the only thing you mentioned that I
personally would use (and rarely) is the feature that would allow a look-up
based on description.

Most of us who grow orchids are pretty much sticklers for having the names
of the plants, so it would be a rare time indeed when one of us would use
even that function.

As to the photos, lifting photos posted on the web is *not* a good idea. You
mentioned the intellectual property issue. I don't know how you'd get past
that, with the thousands of anonymous posters out there.

Between OrchidWiz and www.orchidspecies.com , there is little that is not
now available. Again, though, I do admire you for thinking about such a
massive undertaking. Try a couple more orchids!

Diana

"K Barrett" wrote in message
...
"Steve" wrote in message
...
packat wrote:
Hello,
I am a computer scientist who has a deep passion for orchids. My
parents grew several orchids where I grew up (Thailand), way back in
the 60's. Our fence at the front part of the property lined with 8-9
feet long poles covered with coconut husk and grew Vanda on them.
They are very common in Thailand. I don't know what species, but the
plants grew as tall as the poles and flowered profusely. The leaves
were thin about 10 cm long with round cross section. We had several
other kinds of orchids too, mostly natives of Thailand.

I now live in Maryland near DC. I have spent fortune over the years
trying to grow several orchids I bought from local nurseries and
internet. But I wasn't successful. They all eventually died. But
even with all these failed attempt, my love for orchids has never
faded. I decided to turn to studying them instead of growing them.
My new goal is to build a web-site that I (or any site visitors) to
search the database that stores taxonomy and various characteristics
of each species. For instance, people could request: "find all
orchids with red lip, yellow petals, 2-3 cm in size,....." etc.
The response would be the list of species that match, or fuzzy match
these characteristics. I hope to also show pictures that I collected
over the years from the internet. Probably those that some of you
took. But I need to work out the intellectual property issue first
before I can do that.

My questions to the community a
1) Would this be useful to you?
2) Is there a website(s) that has comprehensive list of orchid
taxonomy? I have looked at several sites including wikipedia, which
are very useful, but I haven't yet found an authoritative and
comprehensive site.
3) This is a stupid question: I found several differentiations
between sites on the species name: e.g. dayana vs dayanum, coccinea vs
coccineum, aurea vs aureum,... and many more. What is the standard
practice when it comes to choosing which version to use?

Thanks,
pax

The site most of us use now to look up a species is this:
http://www.orchidspecies.com/
Now, if you could do what you say you want to do and make it searchable
by a description, that would be most useful when we have no idea what an
orchid is. With the site above, a person needs to have an educated guess
about what the genus is, in order to find a plant.
I'm not sure that you realize what a massive project this would be. Look
at the size of the orchid species site and you will have a good idea.
As far as your questions about names... the species name needs to match
the gender of the genus name. Sometimes scientists decide to place a
plant in a different genus. If the new genus has a different gender, the
species name needs to change to reflect that.

Steve


Pax, if you want to get involved with databases, maybe you should ask Jay
Pfahl http://www.orchidspecies.com if he wants help with his site or ask
Alex Maximano if he wants help with Orchid Wiz http://www.orchidwiz.com,
or ask the American Orchid Society if they want help with their site
http://www.aos.org. Goodness knows the AOS always needs talent. Otherwise
its kinda hard to compete with the Google search engine. If I want to
know anything I just google the term and usually I find it to any depth of
interest.

K Barrett

In article , packat wrote:

Hello,
I am a computer scientist who has a deep passion for orchids. My
parents grew several orchids where I grew up (Thailand), way back in
the 60's. Our fence at the front part of the property lined with 8-9
feet long poles covered with coconut husk and grew Vanda on them.
They are very common in Thailand. I don't know what species, but the
plants grew as tall as the poles and flowered profusely. The leaves
were thin about 10 cm long with round cross section. We had several
other kinds of orchids too, mostly natives of Thailand.

I now live in Maryland near DC. I have spent fortune over the years
trying to grow several orchids I bought from local nurseries and
internet. But I wasn't successful. They all eventually died. But
even with all these failed attempt, my love for orchids has never
faded. I decided to turn to studying them instead of growing them.
My new goal is to build a web-site that I (or any site visitors) to
search the database that stores taxonomy and various characteristics
of each species. For instance, people could request: "find all
orchids with red lip, yellow petals, 2-3 cm in size,....." etc.
The response would be the list of species that match, or fuzzy match
these characteristics. I hope to also show pictures that I collected
over the years from the internet. Probably those that some of you
took. But I need to work out the intellectual property issue first
before I can do that.

My questions to the community a
1) Would this be useful to you?
2) Is there a website(s) that has comprehensive list of orchid
taxonomy? I have looked at several sites including wikipedia, which
are very useful, but I haven't yet found an authoritative and
comprehensive site.
3) This is a stupid question: I found several differentiations
between sites on the species name: e.g. dayana vs dayanum, coccinea vs
coccineum, aurea vs aureum,... and many more. What is the standard
practice when it comes to choosing which version to use?

Thanks,
pax

You might try joining a local orchid society. That way you could learn more
about growing orchids. The members are always ready to offer suggestions/help.

Chris

I pretty much agree with everything said so far. While I don't think anyone
here would do it unless provoked you could be prosecuted for just
downloading all those pictures you say you have. That's copyright
infringement. If your harddrive were to be confiscated for any reason, those
pictures could provide more evidence against you. While most of us probably
have some downloaded material hanging around the harddrive, we don't say so
or propose to use it.
Take the advice and start more modestly. If you manage to work out the basic
problems, I'll be the first to try and help. But you have a lot of footwork
to do first before anyone will invest time, energy or intellectual property.
Gary

"Diana Kulaga" wrote in message
.. .
Pax, I admire your ambition. But truly, the only thing you mentioned that
I personally would use (and rarely) is the feature that would allow a
look-up based on description.

Most of us who grow orchids are pretty much sticklers for having the names
of the plants, so it would be a rare time indeed when one of us would use
even that function.

As to the photos, lifting photos posted on the web is *not* a good idea.
You mentioned the intellectual property issue. I don't know how you'd get
past that, with the thousands of anonymous posters out there.

Between OrchidWiz and www.orchidspecies.com , there is little that is not
now available. Again, though, I do admire you for thinking about such a
massive undertaking. Try a couple more orchids!

Diana

"K Barrett" wrote in message
...
"Steve" wrote in message
...
packat wrote:
Hello,
I am a computer scientist who has a deep passion for orchids. My
parents grew several orchids where I grew up (Thailand), way back in
the 60's. Our fence at the front part of the property lined with 8-9
feet long poles covered with coconut husk and grew Vanda on them.
They are very common in Thailand. I don't know what species, but the
plants grew as tall as the poles and flowered profusely. The leaves
were thin about 10 cm long with round cross section. We had several
other kinds of orchids too, mostly natives of Thailand.

I now live in Maryland near DC. I have spent fortune over the years
trying to grow several orchids I bought from local nurseries and
internet. But I wasn't successful. They all eventually died. But
even with all these failed attempt, my love for orchids has never
faded. I decided to turn to studying them instead of growing them.
My new goal is to build a web-site that I (or any site visitors) to
search the database that stores taxonomy and various characteristics
of each species. For instance, people could request: "find all
orchids with red lip, yellow petals, 2-3 cm in size,....." etc.
The response would be the list of species that match, or fuzzy match
these characteristics. I hope to also show pictures that I collected
over the years from the internet. Probably those that some of you
took. But I need to work out the intellectual property issue first
before I can do that.

My questions to the community a
1) Would this be useful to you?
2) Is there a website(s) that has comprehensive list of orchid
taxonomy? I have looked at several sites including wikipedia, which
are very useful, but I haven't yet found an authoritative and
comprehensive site.
3) This is a stupid question: I found several differentiations
between sites on the species name: e.g. dayana vs dayanum, coccinea vs
coccineum, aurea vs aureum,... and many more. What is the standard
practice when it comes to choosing which version to use?

Thanks,
pax

The site most of us use now to look up a species is this:
http://www.orchidspecies.com/
Now, if you could do what you say you want to do and make it searchable
by a description, that would be most useful when we have no idea what an
orchid is. With the site above, a person needs to have an educated guess
about what the genus is, in order to find a plant.
I'm not sure that you realize what a massive project this would be. Look
at the size of the orchid species site and you will have a good idea.
As far as your questions about names... the species name needs to match
the gender of the genus name. Sometimes scientists decide to place a
plant in a different genus. If the new genus has a different gender, the
species name needs to change to reflect that.

Steve


Pax, if you want to get involved with databases, maybe you should ask Jay
Pfahl http://www.orchidspecies.com if he wants help with his site or ask
Alex Maximano if he wants help with Orchid Wiz http://www.orchidwiz.com,
or ask the American Orchid Society if they want help with their site
http://www.aos.org. Goodness knows the AOS always needs talent.
Otherwise its kinda hard to compete with the Google search engine. If I
want to know anything I just google the term and usually I find it to any
depth of interest.

K Barrett

Pax

As everyone has said, it would be a massive project as there are somewhere
between 25- 30000+ species.

But there is a use for a searchable database based on floral
characteristics. When I have gone into the field in Australia, Asia and
Europe photographing orchids, there are often ones that I can't ID. They
don't come with labels in the jungle, bush or fields. This necessitates
many hours searching references and e-mailing friends and colleagues. I
would certainly find a searchable database useful to help narrow down the
search for a name.

A few authoritative sites for plant names are Kew monocots
http://apps.kew.org/wcsp/home.do , International Plant Names Index
http://www.ipni.org/ and Missouri Botanical Garden Tropicos sites
http://www.tropicos.org/

You would need to get written authorisation from all photographers to use
their photos. Another huge task.

Good luck and as Diana said, do try a few more orchids but chose the more
hardy ones suitable to your conditions to start with.

~John



..
"Diana Kulaga" wrote in message
.. .
Pax, I admire your ambition. But truly, the only thing you mentioned that
I personally would use (and rarely) is the feature that would allow a
look-up based on description.

Most of us who grow orchids are pretty much sticklers for having the names
of the plants, so it would be a rare time indeed when one of us would use
even that function.

As to the photos, lifting photos posted on the web is *not* a good idea.
You mentioned the intellectual property issue. I don't know how you'd get
past that, with the thousands of anonymous posters out there.

Between OrchidWiz and www.orchidspecies.com , there is little that is not
now available. Again, though, I do admire you for thinking about such a
massive undertaking. Try a couple more orchids!

Diana

"K Barrett" wrote in message
...
"Steve" wrote in message
...
packat wrote:
Hello,
I am a computer scientist who has a deep passion for orchids. My
parents grew several orchids where I grew up (Thailand), way back in
the 60's. Our fence at the front part of the property lined with 8-9
feet long poles covered with coconut husk and grew Vanda on them.
They are very common in Thailand. I don't know what species, but the
plants grew as tall as the poles and flowered profusely. The leaves
were thin about 10 cm long with round cross section. We had several
other kinds of orchids too, mostly natives of Thailand.

I now live in Maryland near DC. I have spent fortune over the years
trying to grow several orchids I bought from local nurseries and
internet. But I wasn't successful. They all eventually died. But
even with all these failed attempt, my love for orchids has never
faded. I decided to turn to studying them instead of growing them.
My new goal is to build a web-site that I (or any site visitors) to
search the database that stores taxonomy and various characteristics
of each species. For instance, people could request: "find all
orchids with red lip, yellow petals, 2-3 cm in size,....." etc.
The response would be the list of species that match, or fuzzy match
these characteristics. I hope to also show pictures that I collected
over the years from the internet. Probably those that some of you
took. But I need to work out the intellectual property issue first
before I can do that.

My questions to the community a
1) Would this be useful to you?
2) Is there a website(s) that has comprehensive list of orchid
taxonomy? I have looked at several sites including wikipedia, which
are very useful, but I haven't yet found an authoritative and
comprehensive site.
3) This is a stupid question: I found several differentiations
between sites on the species name: e.g. dayana vs dayanum, coccinea vs
coccineum, aurea vs aureum,... and many more. What is the standard
practice when it comes to choosing which version to use?

Thanks,
pax

The site most of us use now to look up a species is this:
http://www.orchidspecies.com/
Now, if you could do what you say you want to do and make it searchable
by a description, that would be most useful when we have no idea what an
orchid is. With the site above, a person needs to have an educated guess
about what the genus is, in order to find a plant.
I'm not sure that you realize what a massive project this would be. Look
at the size of the orchid species site and you will have a good idea.
As far as your questions about names... the species name needs to match
the gender of the genus name. Sometimes scientists decide to place a
plant in a different genus. If the new genus has a different gender, the
species name needs to change to reflect that.

Steve


Pax, if you want to get involved with databases, maybe you should ask Jay
Pfahl http://www.orchidspecies.com if he wants help with his site or ask
Alex Maximano if he wants help with Orchid Wiz http://www.orchidwiz.com,
or ask the American Orchid Society if they want help with their site
http://www.aos.org. Goodness knows the AOS always needs talent.
Otherwise its kinda hard to compete with the Google search engine. If I
want to know anything I just google the term and usually I find it to any
depth of interest.

K Barrett

On Dec 27, 8:25*am, packat wrote:
Hello,
I am a computer scientist who has a deep passion for orchids. *My
parents grew several orchids where I grew up (Thailand), way back in
the 60's. * Our fence at the front part of the property lined with 8-9
feet long poles covered with coconut husk and grew Vanda on them.
They are very common in Thailand. *I don't know what species, but the
plants grew as tall as the poles and flowered profusely. *The leaves
were thin about 10 cm long with round cross section. *We had several
other kinds of orchids too, mostly natives of Thailand.

I now live in Maryland near DC. *I have spent fortune over the years
trying to grow several orchids I bought from local nurseries and
internet. *But I wasn't successful. *They all eventually died. *But
even with all these failed attempt, my love for orchids has never
faded. I decided to turn to studying them instead of growing them.
My new goal is to build a web-site that I (or any site visitors) to
search the database that stores taxonomy and various characteristics
of each species. * For instance, people could request: "find all
orchids with red lip, yellow petals, 2-3 cm in size,....." * etc.
The response would be the list of species that match, or fuzzy match
these characteristics. * I hope to also show pictures that I collected
over the years from the internet. *Probably those that some of you
took. *But I need to work out the intellectual property issue first
before I can do that.

My questions to the community a
1) Would this be useful to you?
2) Is there a website(s) that has comprehensive list of orchid
taxonomy? *I have looked at several sites including wikipedia, which
are very useful, but I haven't yet found an authoritative and
comprehensive site.
3) *This is a stupid question: * I found several differentiations
between sites on the species name: e.g. dayana vs dayanum, coccinea vs
coccineum, aurea vs aureum,... and many more. *What is the standard
practice when it comes to choosing which version to use?

Thanks,
pax

Here are a few sites that are dedicated to Cattleya orchids and their
relatives:

a href="http://www.cattleyaorchidsource.com/"Cattleya Orchid Source/
a
a href="http://cattleya.wikidot.com/"Cattleya Source Wiki/a

I commend you on the undertaking. Good luck.

John Denson - a href="http://cattleyasource.blogspot.com/"Cattleyas
and More Blog/a

Thanks everyone for responding (and sorry for top posting.)

What I made the wrong choice of words. What I meant by "intellectual
property" is really "infringement". I have never taken a picture of
orchids in my entire life so there is no intellectual to protect on
my part. Sigh... I have been living in the US for over 30 years, but
my English vocabulary can only fill a Chinese restaurant menu!

I visited Jay Pfahl impressive site. I am awed at the massive
content he accumulated, and cannot guess the amount of time needed to
maintain the currency of the classification, now that there are a lot
of re-classification efforts around the world.

The project I have in mind was a lot more modest that some of you may
think. My intention is to develop a web software, not the content.
It is not to build a comprehensive information center such as
JayPfahl's, which would require in-dept expertise that comes with
years of experience on orchids classification which I don't have. I
am sure Jay did not just spend a few years collecting pictures and
organizing them on his web site.

I am more comfortable in designing and writing computer software. I
will reach retirement age in a couple of years which make me think
what I really want to do to make my retirement meaningful and
entertaining. I want to see a web site where people can search
pictures by features (pattern, color, shape, etc..) without any
knowledge of scientific classification. The search algorithm is not
specific to orchids. Before taking on such a massive undertaking
(phrase borrowed from Dianna) I need a small manageable sample data
for proof of concept. And for that, I planned to use orchids under
genus begin with A to D. As Steve and K Barrett suggested, it may be
better to share this capability with existing content provider such as
Jay Pfahl's and/or American Orchid Society. But I am way ahead of my
self. For now, I will only focus on designng and building a proof of
concept.

Thanks you all,
pax



On Dec 27, 8:22*pm, "v_coerulea" wrote:
I pretty much agree with everything said so far. While I don't think anyone
here would do it unless provoked you could be prosecuted for just
downloading all those pictures you say you have. That's copyright
infringement. If your harddrive were to be confiscated for any reason, those
pictures could provide more evidence against you. While most of us probably
have some downloaded material hanging around the harddrive, we don't say so
or propose to use it.
Take the advice and start more modestly. If you manage to work out the basic
problems, I'll be the first to try and help. But you have a lot of footwork
to do first before anyone will invest time, energy or intellectual property.
Gary

"Diana Kulaga" wrote in message

.. .

Pax, I admire your ambition. But truly, the only thing you mentioned that
I personally would use (and rarely) is the feature that would allow a
look-up based on description.

Most of us who grow orchids are pretty much sticklers for having the names
of the plants, so it would be a rare time indeed when one of us would use
even that function.

As to the photos, lifting photos posted on the web is *not* a good idea..
You mentioned the intellectual property issue. I don't know how you'd get
past that, with the thousands of anonymous posters out there.

Between OrchidWiz andwww.orchidspecies.com, there is little that is not
now available. Again, though, I do admire you for thinking about such a
massive undertaking. Try a couple more orchids!

Diana

"K Barrett" wrote in message
...
"Steve" wrote in message
...
packat wrote:
Hello,
I am a computer scientist who has a deep passion for orchids. *My
parents grew several orchids where I grew up (Thailand), way back in
the 60's. * Our fence at the front part of the property lined with 8-9
feet long poles covered with coconut husk and grew Vanda on them.
They are very common in Thailand. *I don't know what species, but the
plants grew as tall as the poles and flowered profusely. *The leaves
were thin about 10 cm long with round cross section. *We had several
other kinds of orchids too, mostly natives of Thailand.

I now live in Maryland near DC. *I have spent fortune over the years
trying to grow several orchids I bought from local nurseries and
internet. *But I wasn't successful. *They all eventually died. *But
even with all these failed attempt, my love for orchids has never
faded. I decided to turn to studying them instead of growing them.
My new goal is to build a web-site that I (or any site visitors) to
search the database that stores taxonomy and various characteristics
of each species. * For instance, people could request: "find all
orchids with red lip, yellow petals, 2-3 cm in size,....." * etc.
The response would be the list of species that match, or fuzzy match
these characteristics. * I hope to also show pictures that I collected
over the years from the internet. *Probably those that some of you
took. *But I need to work out the intellectual property issue first
before I can do that.

My questions to the community a
1) Would this be useful to you?
2) Is there a website(s) that has comprehensive list of orchid
taxonomy? *I have looked at several sites including wikipedia, which
are very useful, but I haven't yet found an authoritative and
comprehensive site.
3) *This is a stupid question: * I found several differentiations
between sites on the species name: e.g. dayana vs dayanum, coccinea vs
coccineum, aurea vs aureum,... and many more. *What is the standard
practice when it comes to choosing which version to use?

Thanks,
pax

The site most of us use now to look up a species is this:
http://www.orchidspecies.com/
Now, if you could do what you say you want to do and make it searchable
by a description, that would be most useful when we have no idea what an
orchid is. With the site above, a person needs to have an educated guess
about what the genus is, in order to find a plant.
I'm not sure that you realize what a massive project this would be. Look
at the size of the orchid species site and you will have a good idea.
As far as your questions about names... the species name needs to match
the gender of the genus name. Sometimes scientists decide to place a
plant in a different genus. If the new genus has a different gender, the
species name needs to change to reflect that.

Steve

Pax, if you want to get involved with databases, maybe you should ask Jay
Pfahlhttp://www.orchidspecies.comif he wants help with his site or ask
Alex Maximano if he wants help with Orchid Wizhttp://www.orchidwiz.com,
or ask the American Orchid Society if they want help with their site
http://www.aos.org. *Goodness knows the AOS always needs talent.
Otherwise its kinda hard to compete with the Google search engine. *If I
want to know anything I just google the term and usually I find it to any
depth of interest.

K Barrett

John,
Thanks for your encouragement.

On Dec 28, 8:35*am, "John Varigos"
wrote:
Pax

As everyone has said, it would be a massive project as there are somewhere
between 25- 30000+ species.

Yes, I agree. It is relatively easy to build search application. It
is much harder to collect information that drives the application.
That is where intellectual property really is.


But there is a use for a searchable database based on floral
characteristics. *When I have gone into the field in Australia, Asia and
Europe photographing orchids, there are often ones that I can't ID. They
don't come with labels in the jungle, bush or fields. *This necessitates
many hours searching references and e-mailing friends and colleagues. *I
would certainly find a searchable database useful to help narrow down the
search for a name.

This is exactly what I have in mind. But the search engine is as good
as the underlying data. So to be of real use by professional like
you, it should run against a database that is trusted by
professionals. So I think K Barrett's suggestion is very appropriate.

A few authoritative sites for plant names are Kew monocotshttp://apps.kew..org/wcsp/home.do, International Plant Names Indexhttp://www.ipni.org/and Missouri Botanical Garden Tropicos siteshttp://www.tropicos.org/

You would need to get written authorisation from all photographers to use
their photos. Another huge task.

Good luck and as Diana said, do try a few more orchids but chose the more
hardy ones suitable to your conditions to start with.

Looks like the majority of response suggested I should reconsider
growing orchids. :-)
I still don't trust my thumb is green enough. I will just enjoy
orchids that grew wild on my property though.

The first one I found 6-7 years ago was Cypripedium acaule - they grew
in the wild in the remote part of my property in Maryland. I spotted
3-4 of them while hiking in my backyard. I was very careful not to
disturb them in anyway. I did go back to observe them but they too,
seem to disappear.

I also found white orchids grow in late fall. They don't seem to have
any chlorophyll. Just white stalk sprung from under dried leaves.
It has white tiny nodding flowers. I search Wikipedia and the closest
resemblance I found was "Cephalanthera austiniae".

Thanks,
pax







~John

That's OK, some of our favorite people here are dedicated top posters. ;-)

packat wrote:
Thanks everyone for responding (and sorry for top posting.)
.............
...................
The project I have in mind was a lot more modest that some of you may
think. My intention is to develop a web software, not the content.

OK, now I better understand. If you have the ability to make existing
knowledge easier to search through and find what we need to know, then I
am sure everyone here would be interested to hear how it's going as your
project develops.

Steve

I'm with Steve. I figure, you've already read the question in a previous
post so why force people to read throught it again to find your answer. If
you're having an SM (senior moment), you can always refresh your memory by
reading down. So I don't think it's discourteous to the original poster,
you're speeding up the process especially for those of us who have lost
scanning skills or just our eyesight.
Gary

"Steve" wrote in message
...
That's OK, some of our favorite people here are dedicated top posters. ;-)

packat wrote:
Thanks everyone for responding (and sorry for top posting.)
.............
...................
The project I have in mind was a lot more modest that some of you may
think. My intention is to develop a web software, not the content.

OK, now I better understand. If you have the ability to make existing
knowledge easier to search through and find what we need to know, then I
am sure everyone here would be interested to hear how it's going as your
project develops.

Steve

So you're not talking about databases just coding for acess to a database
the will be created in the futures by someone or individuals. If that's
correct and you're just looking for advice on what topics interest people so
you can write it into your program, then this whole thing is a lot easier.
Mentionned already was lip color. You can add wavy, frilly, small, large;
flower recumbent or not; flower large, medium, small, single, small group,
cluster; tall spike, medium, or small; spike straight, lax or arched, or
downward; plant is small, medium, large, very large, miniature; monopodial
growth, sympodial growth; internode is 1", 1", 1". You get the idea I
think (credit, please. Just joking)
Enjoy yourself.
Gary

"packat" wrote in message
...
Thanks everyone for responding (and sorry for top posting.)

What I made the wrong choice of words. What I meant by "intellectual
property" is really "infringement". I have never taken a picture of
orchids in my entire life so there is no intellectual to protect on
my part. Sigh... I have been living in the US for over 30 years, but
my English vocabulary can only fill a Chinese restaurant menu!

I visited Jay Pfahl impressive site. I am awed at the massive
content he accumulated, and cannot guess the amount of time needed to
maintain the currency of the classification, now that there are a lot
of re-classification efforts around the world.

The project I have in mind was a lot more modest that some of you may
think. My intention is to develop a web software, not the content.
It is not to build a comprehensive information center such as
JayPfahl's, which would require in-dept expertise that comes with
years of experience on orchids classification which I don't have. I
am sure Jay did not just spend a few years collecting pictures and
organizing them on his web site.

I am more comfortable in designing and writing computer software. I
will reach retirement age in a couple of years which make me think
what I really want to do to make my retirement meaningful and
entertaining. I want to see a web site where people can search
pictures by features (pattern, color, shape, etc..) without any
knowledge of scientific classification. The search algorithm is not
specific to orchids. Before taking on such a massive undertaking
(phrase borrowed from Dianna) I need a small manageable sample data
for proof of concept. And for that, I planned to use orchids under
genus begin with A to D. As Steve and K Barrett suggested, it may be
better to share this capability with existing content provider such as
Jay Pfahl's and/or American Orchid Society. But I am way ahead of my
self. For now, I will only focus on designng and building a proof of
concept.

Thanks you all,
pax



On Dec 27, 8:22 pm, "v_coerulea" wrote:
I pretty much agree with everything said so far. While I don't think
anyone
here would do it unless provoked you could be prosecuted for just
downloading all those pictures you say you have. That's copyright
infringement. If your harddrive were to be confiscated for any reason,
those
pictures could provide more evidence against you. While most of us
probably
have some downloaded material hanging around the harddrive, we don't say
so
or propose to use it.
Take the advice and start more modestly. If you manage to work out the
basic
problems, I'll be the first to try and help. But you have a lot of
footwork
to do first before anyone will invest time, energy or intellectual
property.
Gary

"Diana Kulaga" wrote in message

.. .

Pax, I admire your ambition. But truly, the only thing you mentioned
that
I personally would use (and rarely) is the feature that would allow a
look-up based on description.

Most of us who grow orchids are pretty much sticklers for having the
names
of the plants, so it would be a rare time indeed when one of us would
use
even that function.

As to the photos, lifting photos posted on the web is *not* a good idea.
You mentioned the intellectual property issue. I don't know how you'd
get
past that, with the thousands of anonymous posters out there.

Between OrchidWiz andwww.orchidspecies.com, there is little that is not
now available. Again, though, I do admire you for thinking about such a
massive undertaking. Try a couple more orchids!

Diana

"K Barrett" wrote in message
...
"Steve" wrote in message
...
packat wrote:
Hello,
I am a computer scientist who has a deep passion for orchids. My
parents grew several orchids where I grew up (Thailand), way back in
the 60's. Our fence at the front part of the property lined with 8-9
feet long poles covered with coconut husk and grew Vanda on them.
They are very common in Thailand. I don't know what species, but the
plants grew as tall as the poles and flowered profusely. The leaves
were thin about 10 cm long with round cross section. We had several
other kinds of orchids too, mostly natives of Thailand.

I now live in Maryland near DC. I have spent fortune over the years
trying to grow several orchids I bought from local nurseries and
internet. But I wasn't successful. They all eventually died. But
even with all these failed attempt, my love for orchids has never
faded. I decided to turn to studying them instead of growing them.
My new goal is to build a web-site that I (or any site visitors) to
search the database that stores taxonomy and various characteristics
of each species. For instance, people could request: "find all
orchids with red lip, yellow petals, 2-3 cm in size,....." etc.
The response would be the list of species that match, or fuzzy match
these characteristics. I hope to also show pictures that I collected
over the years from the internet. Probably those that some of you
took. But I need to work out the intellectual property issue first
before I can do that.

My questions to the community a
1) Would this be useful to you?
2) Is there a website(s) that has comprehensive list of orchid
taxonomy? I have looked at several sites including wikipedia, which
are very useful, but I haven't yet found an authoritative and
comprehensive site.
3) This is a stupid question: I found several differentiations
between sites on the species name: e.g. dayana vs dayanum, coccinea
vs
coccineum, aurea vs aureum,... and many more. What is the standard
practice when it comes to choosing which version to use?

Thanks,
pax

The site most of us use now to look up a species is this:
http://www.orchidspecies.com/
Now, if you could do what you say you want to do and make it
searchable
by a description, that would be most useful when we have no idea what
an
orchid is. With the site above, a person needs to have an educated
guess
about what the genus is, in order to find a plant.
I'm not sure that you realize what a massive project this would be.
Look
at the size of the orchid species site and you will have a good idea.
As far as your questions about names... the species name needs to
match
the gender of the genus name. Sometimes scientists decide to place a
plant in a different genus. If the new genus has a different gender,
the
species name needs to change to reflect that.

Steve

Pax, if you want to get involved with databases, maybe you should ask
Jay
Pfahlhttp://www.orchidspecies.comif he wants help with his site or ask
Alex Maximano if he wants help with Orchid Wizhttp://www.orchidwiz.com,
or ask the American Orchid Society if they want help with their site
http://www.aos.org. Goodness knows the AOS always needs talent.
Otherwise its kinda hard to compete with the Google search engine. If I
want to know anything I just google the term and usually I find it to
any
depth of interest.

K Barrett

On Dec 30, 8:40*am, "v_coerulea" wrote:
So you're not talking about databases just coding for acess to a database
the will be created in the futures by someone or individuals. If that's
correct and you're just looking for advice on what topics interest people so
you can write it into your program, then this whole thing is a lot easier..
Mentionned already was lip color. You can add wavy, frilly, small, large;
flower recumbent or not; flower large, medium, small, single, small group,
cluster; tall spike, medium, or small; spike straight, lax or arched, or
downward; plant is small, medium, large, very large, miniature; monopodial
growth, sympodial growth; internode is 1", 1", 1". You get the idea I
think (credit, *please. Just joking)
Enjoy yourself.
Gary



Thank for the great tip. You read mind. Is this common among
vanda's? ;-)
I think the key is to know what key features people are looking for in
orkinds. You gave me lots of answers. What I have done so far were
the standard thing, petal, sepal and lips color, pattern, relative
size, shape, texture. I will add what you suggested.

thanks,
pax







"packat" wrote in message

...
Thanks everyone for responding (and sorry for top posting.)

What I made the wrong choice of words. What I meant by "intellectual
property" is really "infringement". *I have never taken a picture of
orchids in my entire life so there is no intellectual to protect on
my part. Sigh... I have been living in the US for over 30 years, but
my English vocabulary can only fill a Chinese restaurant menu!

I visited Jay Pfahl impressive site. * I am awed at the massive
content he accumulated, and cannot guess the amount of time needed to
maintain the currency of the classification, now that there are a lot
of re-classification efforts around the world.

The project I have in mind was a lot more modest that some of you may
think. *My intention is to develop a web software, not the content.
It is not to build a comprehensive information center such as
JayPfahl's, which would require in-dept expertise that comes with
years of experience on orchids classification which I don't have. *I
am sure Jay did not just spend a few years collecting pictures and
organizing them on his web site.

I am more comfortable in designing and writing computer software. *I
will reach retirement age in a couple of years which make me think
what I really want to do to make my retirement meaningful and
entertaining. * I want to see a web site where people can search
pictures by features (pattern, color, shape, etc..) without any
knowledge of scientific classification. *The search algorithm is not
specific to orchids. *Before taking on such a massive undertaking
(phrase borrowed from Dianna) I need a small manageable sample data
for proof of concept. *And for that, I planned to use orchids under
genus begin with A to D. *As Steve and K Barrett suggested, it may be
better to share this capability with existing content provider such as
Jay Pfahl's and/or American Orchid Society. *But I am way ahead of my
self. *For now, I will only focus on designng and building a proof of
concept.

Thanks you all,
pax

On Dec 27, 8:22 pm, "v_coerulea" wrote:



I pretty much agree with everything said so far. While I don't think
anyone
here would do it unless provoked you could be prosecuted for just
downloading all those pictures you say you have. That's copyright
infringement. If your harddrive were to be confiscated for any reason,
those
pictures could provide more evidence against you. While most of us
probably
have some downloaded material hanging around the harddrive, we don't say
so
or propose to use it.
Take the advice and start more modestly. If you manage to work out the
basic
problems, I'll be the first to try and help. But you have a lot of
footwork
to do first before anyone will invest time, energy or intellectual
property.
Gary

"Diana Kulaga" wrote in message

. ..

Pax, I admire your ambition. But truly, the only thing you mentioned
that
I personally would use (and rarely) is the feature that would allow a
look-up based on description.

Most of us who grow orchids are pretty much sticklers for having the
names
of the plants, so it would be a rare time indeed when one of us would
use
even that function.

As to the photos, lifting photos posted on the web is *not* a good idea.
You mentioned the intellectual property issue. I don't know how you'd
get
past that, with the thousands of anonymous posters out there.

Between OrchidWiz andwww.orchidspecies.com, there is little that is not
now available. Again, though, I do admire you for thinking about such a
massive undertaking. Try a couple more orchids!

Diana

"K Barrett" wrote in message
...
"Steve" wrote in message
...
packat wrote:
Hello,
I am a computer scientist who has a deep passion for orchids. My
parents grew several orchids where I grew up (Thailand), way back in
the 60's. Our fence at the front part of the property lined with 8-9
feet long poles covered with coconut husk and grew Vanda on them.
They are very common in Thailand. I don't know what species, but the
plants grew as tall as the poles and flowered profusely. The leaves
were thin about 10 cm long with round cross section. We had several
other kinds of orchids too, mostly natives of Thailand.

I now live in Maryland near DC. I have spent fortune over the years
trying to grow several orchids I bought from local nurseries and
internet. But I wasn't successful. They all eventually died. But
even with all these failed attempt, my love for orchids has never
faded. I decided to turn to studying them instead of growing them.
My new goal is to build a web-site that I (or any site visitors) to
search the database that stores taxonomy and various characteristics
of each species. For instance, people could request: "find all
orchids with red lip, yellow petals, 2-3 cm in size,....." etc.
The response would be the list of species that match, or fuzzy match
these characteristics. I hope to also show pictures that I collected
over the years from the internet. Probably those that some of you
took. But I need to work out the intellectual property issue first
before I can do that.

My questions to the community a
1) Would this be useful to you?
2) Is there a website(s) that has comprehensive list of orchid
taxonomy? I have looked at several sites including wikipedia, which
are very useful, but I haven't yet found an authoritative and
comprehensive site.
3) This is a stupid question: I found several differentiations
between sites on the species name: e.g. dayana vs dayanum, coccinea
vs
coccineum, aurea vs aureum,... and many more. What is the standard
practice when it comes to choosing which version to use?

Thanks,
pax

The site most of us use now to look up a species is this:
http://www.orchidspecies.com/
Now, if you could do what you say you want to do and make it
searchable
by a description, that would be most useful when we have no idea what
an
orchid is. With the site above, a person needs to have an educated
guess
about what the genus is, in order to find a plant.
I'm not sure that you realize what a massive project this would be.
Look
at the size of the orchid species site and you will have a good idea.
As far as your questions about names... the species name needs to
match
the gender of the genus name. Sometimes scientists decide to place a
plant in a different genus. If the new genus has a different gender,
the
species name needs to change to reflect that.

Steve

Pax, if you want to get involved with databases, maybe you should ask
Jay
Pfahlhttp://www.orchidspecies.comifhe wants help with his site or ask
Alex Maximano if he wants help with Orchid Wizhttp://www.orchidwiz.com,
or ask the American Orchid Society if they want help with their site
http://www.aos.org. Goodness knows the AOS always needs talent.
Otherwise its kinda hard to compete with the Google search engine. If I
want to know anything I just google the term and usually I find it to
any
depth of interest.

K Barrett- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Pax,

Like you, I grew up in Malaysia, love orchids and have done some database programming in the past.

I photograph orchids in the wild, and am constantly frustrated at not being able to ID the photos I take. Your proposed search engine would be of immense value to me.

You might like to have a look at some taxonomic orchid books in your local library. Most books starting with 'The Genus ...' or 'Orchids of ...' will have a key to the various species descibed in the book. You will also find all the information for your database therein.

The on-going taxonomic revisions should not be a hinderance to your search engine. In the type of books mentioned above, you will always see the name of the person who first described it after the specie name - eg. Laelia purpurata Lindley. Simply use all three names and there should be no confusion as to the plant, regardless of the number of subsequent reclassifications.

Do let me know if I can be of help.

Weng