On Thu, 23 Jul 2009, Tyler wrote: > Liz, > I would classify most eucalyptus spp. as deciduous (though judging by your > genus compositions you're in Australia, and I don't know what the species > do there), and probably classify casuarina spp as coniferous... but that's > a bad classification system. That's like saying "this apple is green, that > grapefruit is citrus." > There are deciduous conifers, and evergreen broadleafs. Coniferous doesn't > even account for all of the needleleaf trees.. The wiki should probably be > suggesting deciduous, evergreen and mixed. . . > > Adopting the UNEP-WCMC broad categories [1] would make much more sense than > the current bad wiki suggestions. and adopting the more specific categories > would cover a vast majority of forests. > > [1] http://www.unep-wcmc.org/forest/fp_background.htm#
Yes, I am in Au, and our flora (and fauna) are unique. None of our standard stuff is deciduous. Deciduous stuff from other realms has been planted here. So I expect that all eucalypts are evergreen. Casuarina aren't coniferous as they are actually flowering plants, in which the flower *resembles* a brown cone. the broad categories in the UNEP-WCMC system make sense but the terms don't cover "Mallee" and the most common type of surviving Australian forest "dry sclerophyll" is a term very few mappers would be familiar with. This is a listing of Australian forest types from the legend of a map http://www.australianforests.org.au/pdf/forest_type.pdf Acacia Callitris Casuarina Eucalypt Mallee Eucalypt woodland Eucalypt open Eucalypt closed Mangrove Melaleuca Rainforest Other Plantation descriptive work http://www.australianforests.org.au/australiasforests/forest-types.htm and http://www.daff.gov.au/brs/publications/series/forest-profiles And I had to look up callitris, to find out that is a mere 20km to a large callitris forest from home. The end result of my quick check is that 1. European or northern hemisphere categories of forest are incompatible with Australian flora. 2. Standardised category names may be meaningless to mappers who aren't going to use them if they don't understand them. -- BOFH excuse #166: /pub/lunch _______________________________________________ talk mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
