AusGrass2 builds on the foundation of AusGrass (Sharp & Simon 2002) from data maintained in DELTA format, one for species and infra-specific taxa and another for genera. New features in AusGrass2 are Australian grass literature references, references to Australian illustrations, basionyms and protologue information and derivation of species names (Clifford & Bostock 2007). There is an update of all dichotomous keys. All information is constantly revised as feedback is received by users.

AusGrass2

Edited by Bryan K. Simon on Tue, 12/20/2011 - 02:23

Triodia image

AusGrass2 is a direct development from the original AusGrass (D.Sharp & B.K.Simon 2002). Most of the content from that publication has been brought across to this online version. As with AusGrass the morphological data for species is the same as that used for the Kew online grass flora Clayton, W.D., Vorontsova, M.S., Harman, K.T. and Williamson, H. (2006 onwards). GrassBase - The Online World Grass Flora. http://www.kew.org/data/grasses-db.html and the data for the generic descriptions originates from Watson, L. and Dallwitz, M.J. (1992 onwards). The Grass Genera of the World: descriptions, illustrations, identification, and information retrieval; including synonyms, morphology, anatomy, physiology, phytochemistry, cytology, classification, pathogens, world and local distribution, and references. http://delta-intkey.com

When it became apparent that ABRS was unable to provide funding to be able to produce a second edition of the AusGrass CD, I decided to proceed to develop the AusGrass2 Scratchpad. The need for the update of grass information to users, due to the fact that botanical names of grasses are constantly changing as a result of work on grass taxonomy and phylogeny world wide, is necessary. To illustrate this some names in the published Flora have already changed - the sinking of Austrodanthonia, Notodanthonia and Joycea into Rytidosperma for example.

AusGrass2 will be a continuing work in progress, enabling many users be able to comment on and contribute to all aspects of the Scratchpad content via an editing filter.