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

This is an unmonitored ("feral") NG that is irregular in all other respects
as well, foremost in the frequency of postings. The topic is botany, in all
its aspects, but excluding topics covered in other newsgroups, such as
gardening, cooking with plants, education about plants, etc.

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

But questions are posed in a very wide range of topics ("Is there such a
thing as a walking palm?", "I am stuck in my lab procedure for a ADP-Glucose
Pyrophosphorylase Assay, please help!", "What is the Classic Greek word for
birch?", etc). Some people think this NG knows everything there is to know
about plants! For an in-depth impression see the archives at
http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search
Many questions of a general nature can be answered by consulting the
archives or just a search engine (a frequent question is "I have this school
project. Can someone write my paper for me?" with the standard response:
"try Google" or "DAGS").

GLOSSARY & WEBDIRECTORY:

BOTANICAL NAMES:
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.

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?

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

TROPICOS (or W3TROPICOS) at
http://mobot.mobot.org/W3T/Search/vast.html
This is a list of current names 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.

IPNI at www.ipni.org, www.uk.ipni.org or www.us.ipni.org
Basically this is a list of all scientific names of vascular plants ever
published, in the form they were published. It is not complete (names below
the rank of species were indexed in only one of the component indexes, until
recently) and 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)

Algal names:
http://128.32.109.44/e-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.
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", now in its second edition (2002).
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). A popular system book based on the Cronquist System is
"Flowering Plants of the World" by Heywood (latest news is that Heywood is
rewriting to conform to APG). The standard reference on plant taxonomy, The
Plant-book by D.J.Mabberley, now in its second edition (1997, 2002), also
uses a version of Cronquist, but the third edition will use APG II.

The Tree of Life for land plants:
http://tolweb.org/tree?group=Embryop...p=Green_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 the second half of 2006.

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

In message , P. van
Rijckevorsel writes
A mini "Frequently Asked Questions" for sci.bio.botany

This is an unmonitored ("feral") NG that is irregular in all other respects
as well, foremost in the frequency of postings. The topic is botany, in all
its aspects, but excluding topics covered in other newsgroups, such as
gardening, cooking with plants, education about plants, etc.

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

But questions are posed in a very wide range of topics ("Is there such a
thing as a walking palm?", "I am stuck in my lab procedure for a ADP-Glucose
Pyrophosphorylase Assay, please help!", "What is the Classic Greek word for
birch?", etc). Some people think this NG knows everything there is to know
about plants! For an in-depth impression see the archives at
http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search
Many questions of a general nature can be answered by consulting the
archives or just a search engine (a frequent question is "I have this school
project. Can someone write my paper for me?" with the standard response:
"try Google" or "DAGS").

GLOSSARY & WEBDIRECTORY:

BOTANICAL NAMES:
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.

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?

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

TROPICOS (or W3TROPICOS) at
http://mobot.mobot.org/W3T/Search/vast.html
This is a list of current names 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.

IPNI at www.ipni.org, www.uk.ipni.org or www.us.ipni.org
Basically this is a list of all scientific names of vascular plants ever
published, in the form they were published. It is not complete (names below
the rank of species were indexed in only one of the component indexes, until
recently) and the names listed are not necessarily spelled correctly by
today's standards.


IPNI is incomplete in other ways. It is rather thin on the names of
hybrids. It's also missing some other names - I've found some names in
INRA's synonymy of the French Flora that weren't in IPNI, and also some
names in Adansonia.

Regional lists, usually lacking or with incomplete synonymies, are
appearing on the web - it used to be that Australia was the world
leader, but now there's a complete set for southern Africa, and I
haven't yet found a list for Queensland.

I've been updating my list of floras and checklists, and the new version
is, for the time being, at

http://www.malvaceae.info/PHPlib/Floras.php

(I'm thinking of putting a form in front of this so that the reader can
select and region of interest.)

It may be worth mentioning sources of literature, such as

Google Scholar (http://www.google.com/advanced_scholar_search)
Gallica (http://gallica.bnf.fr)
Botanicus (http://www.botanicus.org)

and perhaps some of the journals with online archives, such as
Am.J.Bot., Ann.Bot., Mol.Biol.Evol.

Something else with is happening is the creation of web sites including
herbarium catalogues, or even images of herbarium specimens.
--
Stewart Robert Hinsley

"Stewart Robert Hinsley" schreef
IPNI is incomplete in other ways. It is rather thin on the names of
hybrids. It's also missing some other names - I've found some names in
INRA's synonymy of the French Flora that weren't in IPNI, and also some
names in Adansonia.

Regional lists, usually lacking or with incomplete synonymies, are
appearing on the web - it used to be that Australia was the world leader,
but now there's a complete set for southern Africa, and I haven't yet
found a list for Queensland.

I've been updating my list of floras and checklists, and the new version
is, for the time being, at

http://www.malvaceae.info/PHPlib/Floras.php

(I'm thinking of putting a form in front of this so that the reader can
select and region of interest.)

It may be worth mentioning sources of literature, such as

Google Scholar (http://www.google.com/advanced_scholar_search)
Gallica (http://gallica.bnf.fr)
Botanicus (http://www.botanicus.org)

and perhaps some of the journals with online archives, such as Am.J.Bot.,
Ann.Bot., Mol.Biol.Evol.

Something else with is happening is the creation of web sites including
herbarium catalogues, or even images of herbarium specimens.
--
Stewart Robert Hinsley

***
Thank you. Yes, the internet is moving fast. As to herbarium specimens
online: I am not sure much new websites have been added (the idea took off
quite a while ago). Most herbarium material is not very appealing anyway. A
site such as Florabase (or the Flora of Panama) is much more useful, with
pictures of living material.

I probably need to rethink this FAQ. I have been posting it for quite a
while now with only minimum updates. However, it already contains more
information than many of the visitors are likely to use.

Anyway, you have put quite a page of floras together!
PvR