Description of Database Fields

Because this database is very much a work in progress, many fields are empty for many taxa. Fields may be omitted for some taxa, particularly above the species level.

Taxon: The basic taxonomic entity being described. Taxonomic names consist of two parts. The first part is Latin and essentially consists of a one-word description of the taxon. For species, it's a two-word description because species are conventionally referred to by their "binomial", meaning one word for the genus that a species belongs to and one for the name of the species (its "specific epithet"). Sometimes the Latin name is helpful; Abies grandis, for example, literally translates as "grand fir". Other times, the Latin name merely commemorates a person; Pinus balfouriana, for example, is a pine named after a Scots horticulturist named Balfour. The second part of a taxonomic name is the name of the author(s) who first named that taxon. This is a critical part of the name because the description prepared by that author is literally the definitive description of the taxon. (I say "literally" because some of the old descriptions, especially from the 19th century or before, are notoriously vague.) The naming of taxa is governed by a strict set of rules, the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature. The study of plant classification and its associated nomenclature is called Plant Systematics; a good introduction can be found in the lecture notes for a course taught at the University of Maryland by James L. Reveal.

Just as a reminder, here's the hierarchy of taxa, with examples in parentheses:

Phylum (Pinophyta)
Class (Conopsida)
Order (Pinales)
Family (Pinaceae)
Genus (Pinus)
Species (balfouriana)
Variety (austrina).

Common names: Vernacular names for a taxon, including non-English names where relevant. I try to include representations of names in non-Roman alphabets but this is often not feasible since, at present, HTML doesn't support character set changes within a file. Chinese names use Pinyin romanization.

Taxonomic notes: A plant may have had a wide variety of scientific names over the years. These past names are called synonyms, and synonyms (abbreviated Syn.) are listed in this field. This field also describes controversial considerations affecting the classification of a species. For example, the Database assigns subspecific classifications to Ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) based on information sufficiently new that not all distinct subspecies have yet been formally described. This is an example of the sort of taxonomic assessment I can present in the Database, that you will simply not see in any printed source, because it is an ephemeral situation; in a year or so, all relevant taxa will have been described and I will amend the Database accordingly. The Taxonomic Notes field also notes known instances of natural hybridization that may locally blur the distinction between two related species.

Description: This field describes what the plant actually looks like. In most cases, this includes the plant's stature, growth form, and characteristics of its foliage and reproductive organs. Unusual morphological features will also be mentioned.

Range: At a minimum, this lists the countries where a taxon is found. It may also describe climate, soils, major vegetation communities, disturbance regimes, or other ecological matters influencing the distribution of the taxon.

Big tree: Most hard data in this field come from the National Register of Big Trees, listing the biggest known tree in the continental USA for all native or naturalized species. There's also an online Oregon Register of Big Trees and a Washington Big Tree Program, and there are a variety of sources for big tree information outside the U.S. In some cases, this field presents approximate information because particular specimens are not known. I have separately provided a lot more information on tree sizes.

Oldest: Estimated maximum age for a species. If an age is known precisely, relevant details are provided. I have separately provided a lot more information on tree ages.

Dendrochronology: Dendrochronology is the study of tree rings. You'd be surprised at the variety of information that can be recovered from tree rings. If you enjoy surprises, try visiting The Ultimate Tree-Ring Web Pages. Information on the dendrochronological uses of a species is either from my personal recollection, or cited from the literature. "The literature" consists largely of the online Dendrochronology Database.

Ethnobotany: Describes use of a taxon by humans, either in native or modern cultures.

Observations: This field tells of especially good places to find the taxon.

Citations: This field has links to bibliographic citations. All specialized data in the database are cited. Most of the citations cannot be found without recourse to a major university library, although a few are online or available in the popular literature.

Remarks: Anything deemed of interest that doesn't fit into one of the preceding fields, such as derivation of the Latin name, threatened/endangered status, or quaint anecdotes.

Miscellaneous Notes

Taxonomists are often called 'splitters' or 'lumpers'. Splitters like to have lots of species and lumpers like to have only a few. I tend to be a splitter, and so this database contains some species that others would call subspecies or varieties. However, I have tried to include enough information in the "Taxonomic Notes" to indicate which taxa are closely related and which are distinctly different.

Abbreviations

N, S, E, W, C = North, South, East, West, Central. Sometimes I use the abbreviations for states in the U.S. or provinces in Canada, but only if the full name of the state/province is listed under 'Range'.

Programming

The database started as a group of word processing documents, subsequently converted to HTML. This was primarily done in a Netscape 3/4/4.5 environment. I have tried to minimize using browser-specific features in an effort to make this material available to anyone. However, practically everything is embedded in a table.

I've tried to keep all text files to a maximum size limit of 20K and to avoid mandatory loading of graphics larger than 10K. Optional graphics, accessed by clicking a thumbnail, may be as big as 110K, but I have to keep them fairly compact due to disk space limitations.