What's important about families?

Plant families, that is. For those of you who have checked out Botanary - or if you've seen the new info that appears next to genus and species names in the Plants Database - you know the type of information we gathered for those names: a brief description or history of the name, and a pronunciation.

Plant families are a little different (and more complicated.) Baa and I are trying to decide on what information to collect. Here are some ideas:

Common name
Major genus (genera) associated with the family
Floral parts
Leaf description
Fruit description
Growing habit, traits
Native to (or found growing where)
Meaning
Pronunciation
Monocot/Dicot

Before we start gathering information, everyone's input is needed and welcome. If we narrowed this list down to the 3 or 4 items, which would be the most helpful and/or interesting to you? Just list your top three (or four), please.

Hi GV -
I'd like to know about growing habits most of all. Knowing whether a plant is aggressive or a heavy reseeder is high on my list of importance and one thing that is hard to determine in most instances. Being in the tropical south we really have to be careful. What so many lucky folks grow as annuals are monsters here.
Leaf description, so many plants tend to look alike except for variances in the leaves.
I also enjoy knowing native ranges and try to always include it when I add a plant to the database.

I would say:

1. Common name.
2. Major genera
3. Meaning
4. Pronunciation

Dave

Thanks, Floridian! One cautionary note: this information will describe the general characteristics of the entire family, not the "nitty gritty" about a particular species.

For example, if you were to see an entry for Lamiaceae (Mint), what would be of interest to you about this huge family? That the plants typically have square stems? Or something else?

Go_vols: Couldn't some of the more technical descriptions of the leaf and flower occurr in the description section as an option, since a person posting to the database may not have that information at the time of posting, leaving many spots with "not specified".

Concerning the common names, a section for aliases would be nice, since there are too many common names for each plant to put them in the title. These common names vary from state to state, as well as other countries, like the UK.

Another issue I have run into is the changing of latin names from time to time, when someone moves an entire species to another family, etc. Could we footnote those in some way...AKA?

Thanks Vols

WG

I think the moniker 'common name' here means something like the Mint or Bellflower family rather than individual genus and species common names which would be very complicated.

As for family boundaries, the scientists can't agree on some of the genera on the fringe of a family, especially since the new DNA classifications aren't yet complete. A family database would need to be updated as new things emerge of course but unless all genera in a family is listed I really don't think it would be necessary for now to attempt such an undertaking (said Baa envisioning a complete nightmare LOL)

Personally I don't think you can leave physical descriptions to just an optional input. While many families have a great diversity of genera which can get very technical, there are many with common traits, as Vols mentioned square stems on the mint family (although square stems are occasionally found in Genera of other families, it's not nearly so common).


Major Genera
Common Name
Common traits
Where Found

Would be my choice were I to choose only 4.


This message was edited Wednesday, Apr 10th 5:25 PM

Call it whatever you find useful, but I think it would be very helpful to have an indication of how a plant grew in its natural habitat. Often, people don't have a clue as to the original environment where a plant was found. Lately, I have seen an increase in the number of plants brought from other countries for commercial sales, and little or no information is provided for the consumer. It's also true of plants an experienced gardener might know but new gardeners have never seen or grown. The plants they are trading for or seeking information for growing might as well have just landed on our shores, for all that is available to them in the market and for all the basic information taken for granted by a more experienced gardener. This might be the only place they know to come for basic understanding. So it would be extermely useful to be able to learn that a plant's native habitat is a shady forest, underneath tall trees in a moist forest floor, or that another plant requires its roots to dry out as they did on the rocky cliffs where it grows wild in crevices. If we can envision the native habitat, we can so much more easily provide a similar environment for our adapted and adopted plants. As MaVie would say, just my two cents worth.

Think that's a really good idea, and very important to put in for individual species Aimee, but different members within a family can thrive in totally different conditions, so this wouldn't be practical for the family info.

A family description has by nature to encompass the whole family, so with most families you'll need to generalise rather than be specific and headings such as "where found" and "growth habit" cannot be applied as these will vary from species to species.

Monocot/dicot could be helpful, as that influences cultivation methods.

1 Major genera
2 Common name
3 Monocot/dicot
4 Common traits