Dear new friends,
Thanks to Dinesh (surname supressed), I think I have found a forum that
will stimulate me. I have been waiting for some plant names in Indian
scripts to appear on the www since 1995 when I first launched the MMPND.
Pankaj (surname supressed) contributed a few but back then the fonts were
not available. I had to create images with devices that did not produce the
exact words, the result was poor. Since then there has been an abundance of
words in various scripts. We are now facing a new problem. Nomenclatural
identification.
There is the official nomenclature - taxonomy, and there is the vernacular
(common names). Not always matching each other. Photos help but without
photo, one needs to start from a strong basis. Hence my work since the
1985's, 1995 online.
My point is: I would suggest that we use the authority names with all
botanical names, that is for example *Azadirachta excelsa* (Jack) M. Jacobs as
opposed to just the usual *Azadirachta excelsa* . Why? because the bot.
name on its own may mean different things when used by different
authorities. In order to track down the synonyms in the search for a
positive ID a complete botanical name is the first strong step. I suggest
the first 2 sites in order to find those generally up-to-date complete bot.
names:
< http://www.plantnames.unimelb.edu.au/Sorting/List_bot.html#sec.02 >
< http://www.ars-grin.gov/ >
These will also supply bot. synonyms and common names...and more. They are
valuable when doing searches online. 10 names will return nothing and one
will return hundreds of pages. I have had plenty of experience since 1995.
These 2 sites are built on years of experience started long before the
internet was invented. Do take advantage of that experience.
There are also other sites dealing with bot. names but usually not as
focused on international communication. Many of those are linked in some
way to these 2 anyhow.
Regards to all.
Michel
