ePIC, the electronic Plant Information Centre. Kew Gardens has released the first stage in a new online information resource discovery service. You can now search for plant information across four databases held at Kew in one action. The first release includes:

a) The International Plant Names Index (IPNI). A list of plant names giving place of publication, storing c1.4 million scientific plant names. Comprising data from 3 hitherto separate indexes (Index Kewensis, Gray Card Index and the Australian Plant Name Index.

b) Bibliographic data in the Kew Record of Taxonomic Literature. A bibliography of over 200,000 publications published since 1971 and relating to the taxonomy of flowering plants, gymnosperms, and ferns.

c) The Survey of Economic Plants of Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (SEPASAL). Information about the economic uses of plants in a database of useful species of "wild" and semi-domesticated vascular plants of tropical and sub-tropical drylands. Uses, distribution, use-related properties, environmental tolerances, synonymy and vernacular names are stored for more than 6,200 species

d) The living collection of Kew Gardens, comprising some 70,000 specimens of 30,000 different taxa.

www.kew.org/epic/

 

The Kew Library Catalogue makes information about Kew's collections available to a worldwide readership for the first time.

This resource currently holds more than 145,000 individual records, mostly for published material like monographs and pamphlets. About 700 of the ca. 4,000 periodical titles held at Kew have entries on the catalogue, mainly those acquired by purchase.

More recent additions to the catalogue include recommended Internet resources relating to botany, which can be viewed via hyperlink from within bibliographic records. Another key feature of this botanical gateway is the ability to search other libraries from within the catalogue itself. Live connections to the Library of Congress and the Natural History Museum, London, are already set up and links to further libraries with relevant collections will be added in the future.

www.kew.org/library/catalogue.html

Proyecto Anthos. This information system about Spanish plants originated from the experience of the project Flora iberica and the collaboration of Fundación Biodiversidad. Thus, the Real Jardín Botánico (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas) has set up an on-line database that includes chorologic data (560,000 bibliographic citations) related to 54,000 names (accepted + synonyms), drawings, photographs, vernacular names (47,000), karyological data (10,000), conservation status, as well as distribution maps.

www.programanthos.org

 

Biocat. Database on the biodiversity of Catalonia (Spain). It is the first and largest database on vascular flora and vegetation of Spain in Internet. It has been developed by the Departamento de Biología Vegetal de la Universidad de Barcelona. In this database information on the vascular flora (1,330,009 citations), cryptogamic flora (fungi: 45.000) and vegetation (17,000 inventories) of Catalonia is available. A module dedicated to lichens is currently in preparation.

This database allows searches by name, UTM co-ordinates, plant community, bibliography, etc. It has distribution maps (10x10 Km), photographs and data on chromosome numbers.

http://biodiver.bio.ub.es/biocat/homepage.html

 

Conservación Vegetal. The Flora Commission of the Spanish Committee of the IUCN has made available on line its journal on information about plant conservation in Spain. It allows the access to recovery plans and conservation and management of plants in Spain and in other countries, as well as access to legislation.

www.uam.es/cv

 

Through the information server of the network of libraries of CSIC, the main research entity in Spain, it is possible to access to all its bibliographic and electronic resources: network of libraries, catalogues, databases, electronic journals, etc.

www.csic.es/cbic/cbic.htm