ISHS Acta Horticulturae 620: XXVI International Horticultural Congress: Asian Plants with Unique Horticultural Potential: Genetic Resources, Cultural Practices, and Utilization
TOWARDS A DATABASE OF EAST ASIAN CULTIVATED PLANT SPECIES |
| Authors: | H. Knüpffer, K. Hammer, H.-D. Hoang |
| Keywords: | Taxonomic database, Mansfeld Database, crop plants, checklists, China, Korea, Japan |
| Abstract:
The database of East Asian cultivated plants forms part of the “Database for Checklists of Cultivated Plants”. For a number of countries, it provides taxonomic data for all species known to be cultivated, including synonyms, vernacular names, geographical information, plant uses and plant parts used, narrative text information and literature references. Data for Cuba (1,029 spp.), Korea (605), Italy (665), and Albania (433) have been recorded, among others. The East Asian database is being built up on information from floras and other sources from China, Japan and Korea; it contains data of ca. 1,000 spp. Transliterated East Asian vernacular names are recorded along with English ones. Using Unicode, East Asian characters could generally be dealt with, but cooperation with native speakers would be required for data entry and validation. Taxonomic information is validated against standard references and databases. The main taxonomic backbone is the six-volume “Mansfeld’s Encyclopedia of Agricultural and Horticultural Crops” providing information on 6,100 species of cultivated plants worldwide (excluding ornamentals and forestry plants), and “Mansfeld’s World Database of Agricultural and Horticultural Crops” developed at IPK. Various checklists can be generated. They are useful for plant explorers and collectors (especially of non-crop-specific collecting expeditions), but also as a starting point for compiling floras of cultivated plants. Contributions and comments from scientists, especially from the countries covered, are welcome. | |
Download Adobe Acrobat Reader (free software to read PDF files) | |
