pcplantdb

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lflondon@mindspring.com>]

Richard Morris wrote:
> 
> Hi Folks,
>         I've been giving a bit of though to the tables needed
> to control the database. As well as the tables for the actual
> data I see the need for a few tables to control the way tables
> are linked etc.
> 
> As an example lets assume we have two databases pfaf and ethnobot say.
> 
> pfaf has two tables
> Species Database:
> Latin Name, Common Name, Habitat, Range, Edible use notes, ....
> this has one entry per species.
> 
> Edible uses:
> Latin Name, edible use type
> This can have 0, 1, 2 or more entries per species giving a short
> description of the use.
> 
> ethnobot (data from the ethnobotany database by Jim Duke) has two
> tables
> Common Name:
> Latin Name, Common Name
> Uses:
> Latin Name, Use, Country
> 
> Problem 1: Different Latin Names are used.
> Theres a great deal of difference between the names used
> for particular plants, different authors will use different
> synonyms. To make things worse theres also slight variations
> in the gender endings used:
>         Achillea millefolium
>         Achillea millefolia
> *us, *is, *e, are also common. Theres other slight spelling
> changes ii -> i  , ll -> l etc.

In addition to the following, how about adding footnote codes 
as "wildcards" (dos/unix) as applicable when there is variation in Latin 
name ending, a/um/us/ii/etc. where a=1 um=2 us=3 ii=4 is=5 e=6 ll=7 l=8

n=completely different name (i.e. lanuosa, below) 

Ex.: Achillea millefoli(1,2)

and include a legend for reference

 
> What I think we need is a large table with every conceivable
> latin name in the left hand column and matching latin names
> for each database in the subsequent columns
> 
> Botanical Names cross reference:
> Botanical name/synonym  pfaf latin name,        eth latin name
> Achillea millefolium    Achillea millefolium    Achillea millefolia
> Achillea millefolia     Achillea millefolium    Achillea millefolia
> Achillea lanulosa       Achillea millefolium    Achillea millefolia