Online Flora Information Systems

This page is a resource of materials and discussion for on-line descriptive Floras and interactive flora informations. I provides links to standards and working examples.

Background

The objectives of collaborative development of online Flora Information Systems are to make information from Floras and similar works available over the internet and to do this is a manner that is both comparable and consistent. Consistency and standards will enable a predictable and efficient user experience and the ability to create new applications integrating data from diverse sources. It will provide a platform for scholarly research, allowing dynamic comparison of similar information from different sources. By putting the information in the hands of the users, applications will enable online production of Floras tailored to individual preference or breadth and depth of information an taxonomic and regional coverage.

Workshops

• HISCOM/CHAH Workshop: Towards a common approach to Australasian Electronic Floras, Adelaide, 3-4 December 2007
  • Materials for Online Flora Information Systems (follow on from Adelaide workshop)

Standards

Online Flora projects developed by HISCOM and HISCOM members attempt to comply with information standards developed or endorsed by TDWG. These include:

• Taxonomic Concept Transfer Schema (TCS) wiki
• Structured Descriptive Data (SDD) wiki
• Access to Biological Collections Data (ABCD) wiki
• Darwin Core wiki

Of particular interest is the evolving specification for taxon profiles:

• Species Profile Model (SPM) wiki

Relevant draft standards include:

• Natural Collections Descriptions (NCD) wiki
• TDWG LSIDs Applicability Statement (LSID) GUID wiki
• TDWG Image wiki
• TDWG Literature Group

TDWG ontology vocabularies:

• http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/Ontology.owl
  • http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/Collection.rdf
  • http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/CollectionType.rdf
  • http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/Common.rdf
  • http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/ContactDetails.rdf
  • http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/CyclicityTerm.rdf
  • http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/DigitalImage.rdf
  • http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/GeographicRegion.rdf
  • http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/Institution.rdf
  • http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/InstitutionType.rdf
  • http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/OccurrenceRecord.rdf
  • http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/OccurrenceStatusTerm.rdf
  • http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/Person.rdf
  • http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/Procedure.rdf
  • http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/PublicationCitation.rdf
  • http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/SPMInfoItems.rdf
  • http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/SpeciesProfileModel.rdf
  • http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/Specimen.rdf
  • http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/TaxonConcept.rdf
  • http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/TaxonName.rdf
  • http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/TaxonOccurrence.rdf
  • http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/TaxonOccurrenceInteraction.rdf
  • http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/TaxonRank.rdf
  • http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/Team.rdf
  • http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/TermWithSource.rdf

Online Floras

Australia

• Flora of Australia Online (Schema documentation)

New South Wales

• Flora of New South Wales Online
• Flora of the Sydney Region (in development)

South Australia

• Electronic Flora of South Australia

Tasmania

• Flora of Tasmania Online

Victoria

• Flora of Victoria knowledge base (to be completed by 2012)

Western Australia

• FloraBase - the Western Australian Flora

New Zealand

• Flora of New Zealand online

Miscellaneous

• EucaLink - Eucalypts of NSW
• The Cycad Pages (world coverage)

Online checklists, nomenclators

Global

• International Plant Names Index (IPNI)
• Global Plant Checklist (GPC)
• Species 2000
• Catalogue of Life (CoL)
• GrassBase
• World Wide Wattle
• Tropicos
• Algaebase
• Index Fungorum
• World List of Cycads
• Family Casuarinaceae

Australia

• Australian Plant Name Index (APNI)
• Australian Plant Census (APC)
• What's Its Name (WIN)
• Checklist of Australian Liverworts and Hornworts
• Census of Freshwater Algae in Australia (also)
• Australian Marine Algal Names Index (AMANI)
• Checklist of the lichens of Australia and its Island Territories
• Interactive Catalogue of Australian Fungi
• Catalogue of Australian Mosses

Australian Capital Territory

• Census of the Vascular Plants of the ACT

New South Wales

• WattleWeb - wattle species in NSW

Northern Territory

• Checklists of the NT flora (pdf)

South Australia

• Census of SA Plants, Algae and Fungi

Tasmania

• Census of Vascular Plants of Tasmania 2009

Western Australia

• FloraBase - the Western Australian Flora - a hierarchical view

New Zealand

• New Zealand Plants - including the N.Z. Plant Names Database

Interactive Keys

Australasian

• Pea Key (Lucid)

• Keys to the Genera and Families of Western Australian Flowering Plants (IntKey)

• Simple ID tool for the Western Australian vascular plant species (DELTA)

• Key to the trees of PNG (NaviKey)

• AlgKey (freshwater algae of Australia) (DELTA)

• Guide to Trees of Papua New Guinea (DeltaAccess)

Miscellaneous

• Identify Life wiki (Lucid)

• DELTA databases and interactive keys (Intkey)

• Cyperaceae keys for North America (several genera) (Lucid)

• Ferns of the British Isles (NaviKey)

• Cycad Identification (DELTA and dichotomous/interactive)

• WattleWeb - NSW wattle species (interactive)