>Scott_Shumway at wheatonma.edu (Scott Shumway) wrote:
>>> I just received an ad for the first three volumes of "Flora of North
>> America" published by Oxford University Press...
(Material deleted)
David W. Kramer responded in part:
>Three volumes have been published but the plan is for the Flora to be
>published in 14 VOLUMES of approximately 500 pages each. This is a massive
>work not only in terms of shelf space, and cost (the first three volumes
>are priced at approximately $70 each) to the owners....
>
And now Ken Klemow questions:
Wouldn't it be nice if the whole set could be put on-line (i.e. on the web)?.
Several advantage to having an on-line flora come to mind. First, it could
be updated as new taxonomic information becomes available. Second, links
could be made for each species that would include photos and new categories
of information (e.g., medicinal usage, ecology, pollination biology,
indications of protected status, individual herbarium collections, wetland
indicator status). Third, specific parts could be downloaded and edited to
make it more germane to a given region (for example, I would love to have a
key to Carex that focuses only on those species from Pennsylvania).
Fourth, the keys could be put into a hypertext format, facilitating
identification by non-specialists.
Surely this issue must have been discussed by taxonomists. Or has it?
Ken K.
(who has had a secret desire to scan in the pages of Britton and Brown and
post it anonymously in the dead of the night).
Kenneth M Klemow, Ph.D.
Department of Biology
Wilkes University
Wilkes-Barre, PA 18766
(717) 408-4758
kklemow at wilkes1.wilkes.eduhttp://wilkes1.wilkes.edu:80/~kklemow
