Test of botanical resources on INTERNET
last update: 2001-06-02
General botanical sites
Internet
Directory for Botany
Test of taxonomic software
DELTA
last update: 1999-09-05
Yesterday I downloaded the DELTA programs. I need data
now. I downloaded the base of the angiospermes. It works!
PANDORA
Day before yesterday I downloaded program PANDORA of
Edimburgh.
http://rbge-sun1.rbge.org.uk/BG-BASE/
Test taxonomic resources on INTERNET
New entries are put at the beginning.
Global Plant ChecklistG
Link towards a query with the GPC
http://www.bgbm.fu-berlin.de/IOPI/GPC/query.htm
I tested the GPC (Global Plant Checklist ) of
IOPI (International Organization for Plant Information). It is
good, but it could do better :
Lacks in the presentation of information:
- no distinction beetwin the accepted names and
the synonyms
- no counting of the names resulting from the query
- no expanded sight, with the details available on
each taxon
- no downloading with a database format, possibly
compressed
Lacks in information itself:
- only the origin of information indicates the
distribution area (for example Flore of the Mediterranean)
- no description of the plants
Several other sites offer the service of managing
synonyms, including www.bonap.org.
They have published a synominized list of every single plant in North
America with geographic distribution..
University of Ulm
Approximately same reproaches as the GPC, plus:
- the response to the request comes out by groups
of 10;
- the link " taxonomy " does not work;
- the choice of a RADIO button makes that one
cannot obtain the details on several taxons at the same time
Link towards
a request with Ulm
Gymnosperm Database (conifers.org)
Link towards a
request
Apparently complete, but plant descriptions are in
unstructured text.
PLANTS project of the Department of Agriculture of the USA
http://plants.usda.gov/plantproj/plants/index.html
http://plants.usda.gov/plantproj/plants/fr_qurymenu.html
Example of output:
Magniolia acuminata (L.) L.
cucumbertree
Symbol = Maac
Family = Magnoliaceae
Significant Economically = Yes
Growth Dress = Woody Tree
Duration = Perennial
Origin = Native
Flora of China
http://flora.harvard.edu/china/search/search.html
Excellent, apparently almost complete, with detailed but not formalized
descriptions. no expanded sight, with the details
available on each taxon
no downloading with with a database format,
possibly compressed
requests only on genus or species
Base TROPICOS at Saint Louis, Missouri
http://mobot.mobot.org/Pick/Search/pick.html
Flobase
WESTERN AUSTRALIAN HERBARIUM
Test herbaria on INTERNET
2000-01-23
Museum
MNHN
SONNERAT Herbarium of the National Museum of Natural History
in Paris.
Only usual textual information, but searchable; no images.
Fairchild Tropical Garden
They have 30,000 herbarium specimens with photos of all and a complete
database of garden plantings.
A very valuable resource!
http://www.ftg.fiu.edu/
Test garden inventories on INTERNET
The botanical gardens diffusing their inventory on Internet are still
very rare. Also Fairchild Tropical Garden (see above).
Botanical garden of Edimburgh
http://www.rbge.org.uk /
Arboretum de Villardebelle
http://www.infomaniak.ch/~arboretum/
A recent private garden in the Aude department (France); a dairy of the
plantations.
Vanel Collections
http://jmvanel.free.fr/hypervert
Suggestions of improvement
- to federate the existing ressources by Web
pages (or servers) sending requests to several already existing servers,
then carrying out a synthesis of information obtained
- possible use of scripting, with the access
to the DOM data model
- modification of the current servers to
facilitate interoperability
- to standardize the vocabularies (names of the
fields);
- to better structure the information offered in
the Web pages (currently descriptions of the plants are always in
unstructured text)
- possible use of XML to structure information (or
simply possibilities of HTML 4, tags DIV
and SPAN, attributes id = and class =)
Organizations