Permaculture Information Web

[Heide Hermary <heide.hermary AT gaiacollege.ca>]

Richard Morris wrote:

> Yep, I can't get too excited by author either. It does have some minor 
> use in that there are cases where the same name is given to two 
> different plants. However, the Authors of the two are different so 
> Botanical Name + Author can uniquely identify a plant.
>
> Author info is farily easy to get from the internet, so I see not harm 
> in including it. Whether we actually want to display it is another 
> matter.

Fine, if somebody want to enter that info.  We are currently going 
through a period of very rapid reclassification of plants - MANY plant 
names are changing, so the author info will become meaningless anyway 
very quickly.

> > > Brief description of plant
> > >     1 paragraph summary of plant
> >
> >
> >
> > Personally I don't see how one can summarize something in a paragraph 
> > that takes several pages to properly describe.  Have never been a fan 
> > of executive summaries - don't see the point.  In fact it's always 
> > someone else's point, these summaries acan only be written with a 
> > specific agenda in mind / subjective perspective.  I'd rather spend 
> > more energy on proper description.
>
>
>
> The idea of this is no such much in the actual page about a plant, but 
> more for use in the results of searches, where 50 or so plants might 
> be listed. To make the selection of plants from this list easier a 
> short description could be useful. We could keep this very simple, for 
> example
>
> Tree with edible fruit and medicinal properties.

That's exactly what I'm concerned about: let's not pre-suppose that 
"tree with edible fruit and medicinal properties" is meaningful to 
everybody. In fact, it's totally meaningless to me in the Pacific 
Northwest to get results for trees that grow in Florida.

> Could posibly have a page for each family, and there indicate the 
> higher orders. Some higher info can be useful, for example the 
> monocot/dicot distinction. A broad category like
>
> Litchen/Moss/Fern/Gymnosperms (Confiers and related)/Moncot/Dicot
>
> could be handy. There are some patterns I've found intersting in this 
> stuff have a look at
>     http://www.ibiblio.org/pfaf/D_fam.html
>
> Its also has some use for plant ID. For the most part easy to get this 
> information from the internet.

Okay, fine, although there are many different classification systems out 
there, and there isn't even agreement amongst the taxonomists. I mean, 
just look at how the "kingdoms" are changing.  If someone wants to use 
these terms in the plant description I have no objection.  I don't think 
it's our goal to classify plants according to those terms, but along 
acoecological / ecosystem / guild lines.

> WHta I'm trying to get at hear is more the effect that introducing a 
> plant might have on your ecosystem. So its not just this plant is 
> "suceptable to this disease", but more this plant is sometime "a 
> carrier for this disease" so planting a hawthorn might adversly affect 
> your apple crop.
>
> This could be a relationship
> (Plant, is a carrier of,Disease)
> or
> (Plant, is a vector for, this type of insect)

Maybe the term "host" to an "organism" will solve this?  Most organisms 
are very specific in the relationships they form with other organisms.  
And then we can describe the relationship, which can be complex. Still 
thinking how this might be best "labelled". I know we can't get around 
labels....

> Indeed, habitats is a complex subject. Could have separate page 
> describing a particular habitat in more detail, and the plants growing 
> in that habitat.
>
> Also a need for plain text description of the habitats.
>
> I've done some work going through the text description of habitat in 
> the pfaf db and come up with about 100 different habitats
>     http://www.ibiblio.org/pfaf/D_canned.html#HABIT
> many more I'm sure.
>
> Related to this are Biomes which are "important ecological
> communities or networks of communities that extend over large
> areas." These include
>     Ice, tundra permafrost, tundra interfrost,
>     boreal semi-arid, boreal humid, temperate semi-arid,
>     temperate humid, Mediterranean warm, medeterranean cold,
>     desert tropical, desert temperate, desert cold,
>     tropical semi-arid, tropical humid.
> It would be fun to link plants to the Biomes they occur
> in naturally.

There is a very strong correlation between habitat / becosystem / biome 
etc. and "guild".  This is super important information and needs to 
incorporated in a way that allows for great detail.

> Sort of related to this is the idea of permacuture zones.
> Could have sugestions as to which zones these plants are suitable for.

Goes beyond that to soils etc., but yes definitely related.

> > > Plant Characteristics - physical stuff about the plant
> > >
> > >     Habit - tree, shrub, annual ,bienial etc.
> >
> >
> > yesd
> >
> > >     Max Height - may want to include a locale
> > >         - might actually be a range
> >
> >
> > Range makes more sense, is very locale dependent
>
>
> Indeed. Also habitat related.
>
> Could have something like
> Height: 15m - UK, woodland
>     3m  - UK, Hedges
>     30m - US Rocky mountains

Not just UK =   different moisture rconditions / soil conditions / 
elevations/ exposure to wind......

> > >     Temprature
> > >         Hardyness - which UDSA zones the plant grows in.
> > >
> > >         Frost tender - whether the plant can withstand frost
> > >
> > >         Number of days of frost plant can withstand
> > >
> > >         Min temprature plant can withstand
> > >
> > >         Max temprature
> >
> >
> >
> > That depends, of course, on what time of year the frost occurs (has 
> > plant already hardened off / come out of hibernation?)
>
>
> Yes. Still don't know best way to record this sort of stuff which goes 
> a little further than the UDSA zones.

We are talking about a world-wide database, so USDA zones don't 
necessarily apply. In Canada we have totally different zones - dunno 
whether I can understand them.  Plus the zones constantly change. I 
think it would be usefulfor a lot of people to have that info, but much 
more important is the descriptive info.

> > > Medicinal Uses
> > >     Keywords
> > >     Rating
> > >     text description
> >
> >
> >
> > Ethnobotany, hazards etc.  Same sort of range of information.  Have 
> > no idea what you mean by ratings.
> Ratings are an idea to get users votes on a plant. Could have a sort 
> of rating system from 1-5 to quickly indicate what people think about 
> a plant. For example plants with a 5 rating for edibility are the 
> niceest and plants with a 1 rating are edible but not very nice.

That's  cool

> Ah theres the rub. On to Q3.
>
> A few things have emerged.
>
> As well as plants there are a few other top level thing we might include
> each of these might have a separate page
>
> plants (species)
> plants (cultivars)
> families
> other higher order groupings
> locales - where
> habitats
> guilds and other groupings
> plant uses
> other creatures, pests, diseases
>
> also a general relationship structure, a triple
> (Subject,relationship,object)
>
> Some items like height also need some sort of clarification
> textual description, specilisations locales etc.
>
> Tee dum
>
> Rich

I think the this is  superficial stuff . What we need to figure out is 
how to
- enter information about very complex relationships
- meaningfully search for info that may have been entered in a 
nonchalant / floweringly descriptive way.

The point is we cCANNOT, at this time, categorize the information we are 
trying to develop.

Hope that makes sense.
Cheers, Heide