In article ,
Rob writes:
|
| PS I think I know why all(?) wild flower books are organised around
| the colour, shape etc of the flower itself, but that is useless - and
| too late - to identify most weeds.
| Anyone know of an "identify by the (early) leaves" system. Probably
| cannot be 100% accurate but a guide would be better than nothing.

No. One of the things that annoys me about 'online publishing' is
the way that it imposes the restrictions of the coffee table books
onto a medium that could do far, far better. Few locations on the
Web do as well as an old-fashioned reference book, let alone the
traditional punched cards (for selection by knitting needle).

The construction and use of classification keys, based on an almost
arbitrary selection of criteria, has been well-understood for many
decades, and there were good programs to handle them in the 1960s.
Why aren't there now? I could easily write one, if I could get
access to the data in machine-readable form.

Mutter.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.