Terms used in the text.
The main sources of taxonomic nomenclature are the
Catalogue of Seed Plants of the West Indies
by Pedro Acevedo-Rodríguez and Mark T. Strong referred to as the
Catalogue, Howard's Flora of the Lesser Antilles referred to as FLA,
and Franklin S. Axelrod's A Systematic Vademecum to the Vascular Plants
of
Puerto Rico referred to as F. Axelrod.
The
images of wild flowering plants and gymnosperms are often not of a
single specimen. Rather they represent appearances of the species
throughout its local range and life-cycle. Although
this leads to the risk of mixture of similar species, I have minimized
errors by making a complete set of independently-checked, (mainly at
UPRRP) vouchered herbarium collections. I am
confident that there will be relatively few errors but when you find
them please let me know. Ruler is
mm and
cm unless otherwise stated.
In
the description a vegetation class is ususally mentioned, for example
lower montane rainforest. A brief description of each is in
this documentImages of ferns are often under a location heading such as "Descartiers trail".
Those
images are of a single specimen or localized population.
The
cultivated species albums are not based on herbarium specimens and
given the number of cultivars and hybrids involved, there will be some
mistakes. I am especially keen to record the old-fashioned
comestible
varieties, some of which are becoming much less common. Not all
internationally used common names are included. The best way to look
for a species might be to use the search page. I have not included wild
species that are occasionally planted such as Melocactus intortus.
The
local medicinal album is based on contacts with local practitioners and
more information will gradually be added. One of the problems is that
different practioners use the same plants in quite different ways.