pcplantdb

[Plants For A Future <webmaster@pfaf.org>]

On Thu, 9 Sep 2004, John Schinnerer wrote:

> Family genus and species serve me how?
>
> I don't even know what they mean, really - that is, I have not learned
> about the arbitrary distinctions and relations they indicate.
>
> In the DB they will be essentially useless to me, unless the DB provides
> an understanding of why these distinctions and relations matter and how
> they are useful to me in designing with plants.
>
Time for some homework?

Well they all describe patterns and relationships between plants,
a couple of hundred years of work has gone into trying to find these
patterns, it would be a great shame to throw all this information away.
Yes I admit that they do sometimes take work on the part of the user
its that learning curve again.

Heres some examples where this stuff enhances our understanding of the
plants.

Families: for instance take the Rose family Rosaceae.
This includesa Apples, Pears, Hawthorns, Roses, look at the fruit of
many of these and I think you would see some simalirities in terms
of the structure of the fruit. The rose fammily is particularly well
endowered with good fruit breaing plants, so if you are looking for a
novel fruit crop then consider a member of this family.

Genus: generally closer relationships than family, if its an apple then
its a malus. The Prunus genus contains at first sight qrite distinct
plants (Almond, Apricot, Cherry, Damson,
Nectarine, Sloe, Peach, Plum) but think about it a bit closer
and they are all plants with a big stone or pip. One very important
factor of this genus is that they often contain hydrogen cyanide
which gives the distinctive flavor of almonds. This is important
knowledge as if you come across a plant in this genus then you know that
you should beware!

Higher order clasifications can be useful, the monocot/dicot distinction
(depends on whether the plant has one or two seed leaves when it first
germinates) is an interesting one. Monocots include grasses,
onions (allium), lilies and orchids. To my mind there is some similarity
between all of these plants, although I can't quite put my finger on
it.

Anyway there is lots of interesting relationships betwwen plants
which you can find by examining the plant family tree some work better
than others
he a look at
http://www.comp.leeds.ac.uk/pfaf/D_fam.html
i which gives a break down of some of them.

        Enjoy

                Rich


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