Finding a plant and using the indexes

It is quite possible to see over 2,000 different species or sub species of plant within about five to ten years - some have achieved that even faster. So far (October 2006) there are already over 1,200 and such a large number needs careful indexing if users of the site are to find the plant they want.

For this reason there are several indexes which can be split into two main categories: simple text indexes which load quickly and indexes with a 72 x 72 dpi thumbnail of the plant to help give another clue to the identity.

The A to Z index: The largest index is the thumbnail of all plant species including European plants but birds, butterflies etc. are not included here. This is the most popular index but it gets larger with time and will naturally be slower and slower to load. For this reason it has been split into smaller indexes:

A to D Index: All plants on the site whose systematic name (Latin name) begins with letters A to D.

E to K Index: All plants on the site whose systematic name (Latin name) begins with letters E to K.

L to O Index: All plants on the site whose systematic name (Latin name) begins with letters L to O.

P to S Index: All plants on the site whose systematic name (Latin name) begins with letters P to S.

T to Z Index: All plants on the site whose systematic name (Latin name) begins with letters T to Z.

A to Z Index of European Plants : All plants photographed in Europe even if they are also found in the British Isles are in this index.

A to Z Index of Australian Plants : All plants photographed in Western Australia and Tasmania in 2007 are here including some of the South African and Mediterranean aliens.

Secondary Index Page : As the main index page was getting cluttered, I've relegated the less popular indexes (using web stats) to a secondary index page. Only the A to Z main index remains on the index page now. The A to D, E to K etc. have been put on the secondary index page.

The systematic names used on the site are mostly in line with the lists published by the BSBI but these are only updated every few years and so new discoveries such as Sorbus whiteana (White's Whitebeam) are missing. Very often there are no commonly accepted vernacular names (English) for a plant which has been photographed. An example would be Galactites tomentosa a European Thistle which occasionally grows in the south east or Cornwall. The name "Boar Thistle" was given in one Mediterranean flora so that has been used. In other cases such as hybrids there is rarely a vernacular name but one can usually be found to fit. Sub species have the name of the main species - this of course is one of the advantages of systematic naming that small variations in plants can be described and named.

This month: This index refers to the latest additions to the site for the current month. It includes new additions i.e. plant which aren't yet on the site and major changes and plus new photographs of existing plants.

Latin Index: This contains the systematic names of all the species on the site including European plants, Australian plants, birds, butterflies and fungi. Scenery photos aren't included here and have their own index. Of course unless you know the systematic name for a bird or butterfly you won't be able to find it in this index and Birders tend to use vernacular names.

English Index: Like the Latin Index this has all the species on site but is more useful for beginners to botanising (Systematic names although essential are horribly unmemorable at first). If available the plant names used are those given in Stace. The English Index is also more useful for Birds and Butterflies because they are more often named using the vernacular. It can be useful for another reason: Systematic names change more often than we would like so looking up a systematic name in a flora more than 10 years old could lead nowhere with the Latin Index but the usual English Name will not have changed. An example would be Bromus sterilis (Sterile Brome) from old floras has become Anisantha sterilis in modern ones but is still Sterile Brome. Some synonyms are included in the English Index but since a plant can have as many as 70 different names depending on where you are in the British Isles, including all of them is nigh on impossible.

Cymraeg: Index of plant names (of plants actually found in Wales) in alphabetical order of their Welsh names but it has the English and Latin names too. Having been brought up in England I don't speak Welsh but I am Welsh by birth and ancestry. Wales is where I go most often for plants too so my friend Heulwen Bott has provided the translations.

Ferns: This sub index includes all ferns, horsetails and clubmosses (which aren't real mosses) and any hybrids, introductions and aliens but is restricted to those found growing in the British Isles.

Grasses: This sub-index includes all grasses, sedges and rushes with hybrids, introductions and alien species but is restricted to species growing in the British Isles.

Orchids: This sub index includes all orchids and hybrids found anywhere British Isles or abroad.

Rarities: The rarities index uses Stace's classification to identify a rare British native plant: If the plant is rare, endangered or vulnerable and is listed in the Schedule of Protected Plants of the Wildlife and countryside act 1981 then it is classified here as Very very, rare and in Stace's New Flora of the British Isles Volume 2 as RRR. Plants found in 15 or fewer one kilometre squares are Very rare (RR) and those in 100 one kilometre squares as rare (R). In addition to these rarities there are other obvious rare plants which because of their status as member of difficult plant groups are not described in the latest edition of Stace. Examples of such rarities would be rare Hawkweeds known only from one or two sites. In this case the rarity of a plant is estimated from the BSBI distribution maps or from the more detailed information found in published volumes of Flora of Great Britain and Ireland by Peter Sell and Gina Murell. It is quite possible for an introduced species to be rare for example Ludwigia x kentiana (Purslane hybrid) but there is no such classification available in Stace for these plants.

Fungi: This includes photos of identified fungi. There are more photos available but identification of fungi is tricky and expert help is usually needed.

Birds: Birds seem to fly away from me but I have managed one or two photos now included on the site.

Butterflies: Butterflies and a few Moths are included in this index and many have been taken from close up.

European: Holidays in early Spring on Mediterranean islands yield some photos of wonderful flowers so those too have been included even where they are the same species as those on the main British list. Because the potential for collecting new photos of British plant diminishes as the accumulated total gets larger ( i added about 200 in 2006 and expect to add no more than 100 in 2007), the Euro collection might well show the biggest annual increase. For this reason there is now a separate site for European flowers accessible from the main site or directly.

Australian: The single visit so far to Australia has yielded many photographs of colourful flowers many of which are endemic to this part of the world. Again there are too many simply to add to the main site so a separate sub-domain (it looks like a separate site) has been set up for these.

Diary: Some personal ramblings about collecting wildflower photos.

Photo Diary: Some personal ramblings but illustrated - only occasionally published as it takes quite a time to create one.

Links: Links to other sites with some relevance to Wild flowers in the UK.

Archive: This contains the previous "This month" indexes so a chronological sequence of additions to the site can be found here.

Scenery: Trips into the countryside always lead to a few landscape shots being recorded and there seemed no reason not to include such photos.

Habitat Indexes: There are a few of these such as Cheshire (All plants which have actually been photographed in my home county) and Channel Islands but there could be quite a few more in future.

Genus index: All the flowers in a particular genus are arranged here so that the user can go from one to the other by using Next or Previous without referring back to an index every time. So far only Veronica and Geranium/Erodium have been completed.

Large Photos: Some pages have extra thumbnails pointing to pages with extra large photographs. These are aimed at the increasing number of people who use screens with resolutions of 1280 x 960 and above. Anyone can link to them of course but the photo won't fit on your screen if your resolution is 1024 x 768 or less.

Names of Plants: The systematic names used on the British Isles part of the site are mostly in line with the lists published by the BSBI but these are only updated every few years and so new discoveries such as Sorbus whiteana (White's Whitebeam) have only recently been added. Very often there are no commonly accepted vernacular names (English) for a plant which has been photographed. An example would be Galactites tomentosa a European Thistle which occasionally grows in the south east or Cornwall. The name "Boar Thistle" was given in one Mediterranean flora so that has been used. In other cases such as hybrids there is rarely a vernacular name but one can usually be found to fit. Sub species have the name of the main species - this of course is one of the advantages of systematic naming that small variations in plants can be described and named.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Added on 8th February 2007, amended 16th October 2007