It was 20 years ago today, not that Sgt Pepper taught the band to play but that I submitted my PhD thesis. Of course that is not what they are talking about in the papers. They are all talking about J.K. Rowling and a mildly successful tome Harry Potter and…
Category: Rhododendron Monographs
Work on creating “Species Pages” from the Edinburgh Rhododendron monographs.
My Work Blog Is Moving
I have been on core staff at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh for a year now and, as part of my role there, have established a WordPress blog for the institution. This will act as a combined blogging platform for everyone associated with the organisation as well as a more…
Biodiversity Informatics
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Twenty Years And At Least Twenty Pounds Lighter!
A friend just sent this photo of me collecting Rhododendrons in SW China in 1994 – as good as twenty years ago. Looking in the mirror I think I need to loose some weight. Thin suited me better!
Hierarchies Make Monographs Obsolete. Fact Sheets Are The Future.
Whilst I have been working on digitizing the Rhododendron monographs I have also been providing some technical help for Stuart Lindsay who is producing a series of fact sheets for the Ferns of Thailand. This has helped crystallize my thoughts regarding monographs and how we migrate them into the digital…
Square Peg Into A Round Hole?
I’ve had my head down work wise for the past few weeks trying to get the Rhododendron monograph markup finished. I now have a little database with some 821 species accounts in it plus a few hundred images – mainly of herbarium specimens. The workflow has been quiet simple but…
Extracting Data From the Rhododendron Monographs
This post deals with the semantics of extraction of data from the Rhododendron monographs. Another post will deal with the technicalities of the actual extraction. The image above shows a species description entry. It was chosen as being a small and simple example for illustrative purposes. I have marked up…
Biodiversity Informatics
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Links To All Curtis Botanical Magazine Illustrations in BHL
This is a sideline to my working on the Edinburgh Rhododendron monographs. The monographs often quote references to illustrations (icons) of species. This is useful as we know that these are illustrations that have been determined by the author of the account and are therefore “correctly” determined. What a shame…
Rhodo Monographs – Clean Up 1
The first two parts of the monograph to be looked at were published in Notes from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh – the house journal of the gardens until 1990. Cullen, J. (1980) Revision of Rhododendron. I. subgenus Rhododendron sections Rhododendron and Pogonanthum. Notes from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh….
EOL Rhododendron Monographs – Getting Started
The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh has a history of research into the genus Rhododendron stretching back over 100 years. The legacy of this work is a herbarium that contains many type specimens, an amazing living collection and a set of monographs that cover the whole genus. My contribution back in…