pcplantdb

[Richard Morris <webmaster@pfaf.org>]

Bear wrote

> One person quipped during the presentation "so...when you've entered 
> and cataloged all 200 million species...". To which I didn't respond 
> quickly too. None-the-less, it brings up something about the structure 
> of the database. It seems like objects should be able to "inherit" 
> properties of their "children" (to put it in hierarchical terms) like 
> in OO programming. Only the things that differ from the parent need be 
> explicitly noted. A cultivar is the child of this species, has all its 
> parents properties, BUT it's height is 2 meters and flower_color is red 
> (seed pods are more palatable too). (We can also assume, since it 
> inherits from plant, that needs include "CO2, water, nutrients, sun" 
> and outputs include "O2, water"....duh..) This really means that you 
> don't have to have every, single, individual plant or element cataloged 
> to make the system useful. Like a fractal, the general network and 
> forms will be visible, adding the additional items will make the system 
> richer, and more useful when you're looking at those finer details and 
> characteristics of cultivars, etc.
>
> Part of my interest in RDF, OWL, etc is that it seems to be capable of 
> describing a system like that.

Yes indeed nice description. There is some hierarchal structure maninly 
at the Species/Cultivar level. Although theres also some other 
similarities at higher level. Notably certian genus/families have a 
large number of species which all have the same hazards.

For example Almond (Prunus dulcis) has:

Known Hazards: Although no specific mention has been seen for this 
species, it belongs to a genus where most, if not all members of the 
genus produce hydrogen cyanide, a poison that gives almonds their 
characteristic flavour. This toxin is found mainly in the leaves and

(BUG This sentance seems to end early!)

All other members of the Genus have the same Hazard warning.

I could waffle on about other relationships at family/order/division
level but I'll spare you that.

We did cover this a while back. I think conclusion was KISS and keep 
things as they were, just having a page per species. But it is an 
interesting point to note.

A couple of minor formating bugs, there could be more space between 
Family and Species name in the listing of matching plants. 
http://permaculture.info/cgi-bin/eden?search=almond&button=Search+PIW
Also the underlining was one space out
        Rosaceae Prunus dulcis  Almond
        -------- --------------
rather than
        Rosaceae Prunus dulcis Almond
        -------- -------------
        
Whats the issue tracker status?

        Rich