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Old 17-11-2008, 09:47 AM posted to sci.bio.botany
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Default ### Mini FAQ for sci.bio.botany # 101 ###

A mini "Frequently Asked Questions" for sci.bio.botany

This is an unmonitored newsgroup that deals with botany in all its aspects,
but excluding topics covered in other newsgroups, such as gardening,
cooking with plants, education about plants, etc. In practice
questions are posed in a very wide range of topics: for an in-depth
impression see the archives at
http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search.

Frequently Asked Questions include:
Can someone ID this flower?
Can someone ID this fruit?
Can someone ID this leaf?
etc

A question that occurs with moderate frequency is "I have this school
project. Can someone write my paper for me?" but this often meets with the
response: "try Google".

The information on plants, available on the world wide web, appears to be
expanding at breakneck speed so Google can indeed yield much information on
plants. However, reliability varies. In any Google search wikipedia is
likely to feature prominently: it will be clear that the information on
plants in wikipedia ranges from very good to pure fiction. One of the ways
to avoid this is to use http://www.google.com/advanced_scholar_search.
However there are a number of good websites with authoritative information
on plants such as
http://www.efloras.org/index.aspx : a very good site with many floras. Or

http://www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/npgs/html/taxecon.pl
Well-kept database of economically important plants.

ICBN, the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature at
http://www.bgbm.fu-berlin.de/iapt/nomenclature/code
is the Code regulating scientific plant names.
A new edition was published in September 2006; it is now online at
http://ibot.sav.sk/icbn/main.htm.

Not authorative are sites such as:

Plantfinder at http://www.rhs.org.uk/RHSPlantFinder/plantfinder.asp
This is a directory of names of plants offered for sale in the UK. Standards
are pretty high, both as concerns correct spelling and currency of names.
Note that the RHS does provide some authoritative lists for the purpose of
cultivar registration.

A competing, but as yet small-scale plantfinder
http://www.mobot.org/gardeninghelp/p...der/Search.asp

A lively-looking site with a database of cultivated plants is at:
http://plantsdatabase.com/
This also offers pictures. It is unclear how good a standard is reached?

TROPICOS (or W3TROPICOS) at
http://mobot.mobot.org/W3T/Search/vast.html
This database of scientific names is maintained at the Missouri Botanical
Gardens. It is to be kept in mind that this is a work in progress, with
quality and coverage varying, being especially good in areas where the
Missouri Botanical Gardens is active. Some entries are merely copies of
entries in IPNI.

IPNI at www.ipni.org, www.uk.ipni.org or www.us.ipni.org
Basically this attempts to be an index of scientific names (at the rank of
genus and of species, or below) of vascular plants ever published, in the
form they were published (sometimes mandatory corrections were made). It is
not complete in any sense. Names below the rank of species were indexed in
only one of the component indexes, until recently. The names listed are not
necessarily spelled correctly by today's standards.

ING at http://ravenel.si.edu/botany/ing/ingForm.cfm
(genus names only, but at a considerably higher standard than IPNI)

Algal names:
http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/INA.html

Fungal names:
http://www.indexfungorum.org/Names/NAMES.ASP

A checklist for US plants:
http://www.csdl.tamu.edu/FLORA/b98/check98.htm
More US plant data:
http://plants.usda.gov/index.html

Multilingual lists of common names:
http://www.liberherbarum.com/Index.htm

SYSTEMATICS
It is in the nature of things that Systems of Taxonomic Classification
change whenever new techniques of research become available, yielding new
information. The APG-system (based on two chloroplast genes, supported by a
gene with a ribosomal function) stepped forward first in 1993 (in modest
form) and was published in full glory in 1998, with APG II being published
in 2003. It made a big impression quickly. APG is an abbreviation
(Angiosperm Phylogeny Group), indicating the group of scientists
collaborating in this venture (composition of the group is not quite
constant, over time).
An overview of the APG system can be found at
http://www.biologie.uni-hamburg.de/b...e/apg/APG.html or
http://www.csdl.tamu.edu/FLORA/newgate/cronang.htm
with APG II at
http://www.systbot.uu.se/classificat...sification.htm
An extensive website devoted to the APG is at
http://www.mobot.org/MOBOT/Research/APweb/welcome.html
There also is a system book, "Plant Systematics, a phylogenetic
approach", by Judd & al., now in its third edition (2007). This is not quite
APG II. A competing book is "Plant Systematics" by Simpson.
The previous well-accepted system, now starting to be displaced by
APG but still going strong in many places, is that by Arthur Cronquist
(1919-1992), with the main book published at 1981. A popular system book
based on the Cronquist System is "Flowering Plants of the World" by Heywood.
A successor has been published in early 2007, as "Flowering Plant Families
of the World", which is (loosely) based on APG II. The standard reference on
plant taxonomy, "The Plant-book" by D.J.Mabberley, in its second edition
(1997, 2002), also uses a version of Cronquist, but the third edition
(2008), "Mabberley's Plant-book" uses APG (II-III).

A taxonomic database that more or less follows APG II is the NCBI taxonomy
browser at
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Taxonomy...hmode=1&unlock

(The database at ITIS still follows Cronquist )

The Tree of Life for land plants:
http://tolweb.org/tree?group=Embryop...p=Green_plants

Many databases of taxonomic data have been brought into DELTA and are at
http://delta-intkey.com/www/data.htm
(previously http://biodiversity.bio.uno.edu/delta/www/data.htm),
such as plant family descriptions at
http://delta-intkey.com/angio/index.htm
(previously at http://biodiversity.bio.uno.edu/delta/angio/)

PICTURES
Pictures of a very wide range of plants, arranged by family
www.plantsystematics.org

Pictures of plants, by a botanist based on Hawaii:
http://www.botany.hawaii.edu/faculty...cronq_judd.htm

Pictures of California wildflowers at
http://dlp.cs.berkeley.edu/photos/flora/

Just stunning pictures:
http://www.goetgheluck.com/REPORT/Pl.../xxx_1of3.html

Pictures of trees (Northeast of US):
http://www.cnr.vt.edu/dendro/dendrology/factsheets.cfm

Pictures of trees (Southeast of US):
http://www.forestry.auburn.edu/samuelson/dendrology/

Pictures of trees (Southwest of US):
http://www.naturesongs.com/vvplants/trees1.html

More trees:
http://www.treelink.org/flashcard/
http://www.treeguide.com/
US State Trees:
http://www.treesny.com/trees_stateTrees.htm
Some popular tropical trees:
http://www.zoneten.com/FloweringTrees.htm

Brazilian trees:
http://www.arvore.hpg.ig.com.br/index3.htm

Amazon fruits:
http://amazonflora.com/

Gymnosperms:
http://www.botanik.uni-bonn.de/conifers/
giving a great deal of detail

KEYS
A simple key for trees is at:
http://www.hort.uconn.edu/plants/key...treekey01.html

Several keys:
http://flora.huh.harvard.edu:8080/actkey/index.jsp

ALIEN INVADERS:
http://www.nps.gov/plants/alien/

invading Canada :
http://www.agf.gov.bc.ca/cropprot/weeds.htm

NG-RELATED SITES
A field trip in West Texas:
http://botany.cs.tamu.edu/FLORA/WINSTON/bwinston1.html

Malvales/Malvaceae:
http://www.malvaceae.info
http://www.malvaceae.info/Directory/web.html#Floras

Plant blindness:
http://www.botany.org/bsa/psb/2002/psb48-3.html#Plant

Tree ID:
http://www.realtimerendering.com/trees/trees.html
idem for wildflowers:
http://www.realtimerendering.com/flowers/flowers.html

Fossil Algae:
http://www.ku.edu/~ifaa/index.html

AN OVERVIEW OF MORE LINKS:
http://www.mobot.org/otherlinks.asp
http://www.helsinki.fi/~rlampine/cartogr.html (cartographic links for
botanists. Note that this page has its share of dead links: last updated in
2000)




































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