plantsystematics.org (http://www.plantsystematics.org/) can be useful. There you can find images as well as keys for identification.

That would be of great help for botanists willing to help you to be more specific on the taxonomic group of plants and the geographical region you need this information for.

I'm searching for species from Bignoniaceae Family, found on South America countries. But if there was a database with species from other families, it would be very good.

You may also take a look at this database: http://www.tropicos.org

Take a look at: http://www.plantsystematics.org/ or http://www.diversityoflife.org/

Hi Rita. Unfortunately I don't know any site for your region. However, you may want to take a look on this great site about plant identification and distribution records in Portugal http://www.flora-on.pt/. Hopefully this will be replicated elsewhere. Good luck for your research. Pedro Beja

http://dbiodbs.units.it/carso/cercapiante01

http://efloras.org/

It may be useful as leads to different floras which contains description as well as illustrations

My friend runs this site. He works for the National Parks Board in Singapore. http://uforest.org/

http://www.flora-on.pt/

sem iamgens, mas pode ajudar a cruzar com outras referencias publicadas ou com a propria internet:http://floradobrasil.jbrj.gov.br/jabot/listaBrasil/ConsultaPublicaUC/ConsultaPublicaUC.do

Check on plantlist.org

Look at NYBG Virtual Herbarium: http://sciweb.nybg.org/Science2/vii2.asp or the Smithsonian: http://collections.mnh.si.edu/search/botany/ .

If you ever need to look at plants from the Hawaiian/Marquesan Islands or Micronesia check out: http://botany.si.edu/pacificislandbiodiversity/hawaiianflora/index.htm, http://botany.si.edu/pacificislandbiodiversity/marquesasflora/index.htm, & http://botany.si.edu/pacificislandbiodiversity/micronesia/index.htm respectively. As stated above for plants in general look at JSTOR-Global Plants http://plants.jstor.org/ .

Be cautious with the taxonomy found on The Plant List, it is not current for many genera. You can look at http://www.ipni.org/ for taxonomy and publications, once again take it with a grain of salt.

not sure if its valid for your area.....http://www.wildflowersofireland.net/

SE Asia - http://www.asianplant.net

A very goood website is http://www.tropicos.org/

Check also this project project http://www.plantnet-project.org. The idea is that you take a picture of a plant anywhere in the world and image recognition algorithms take care of the identification. Still under development I think.

This is a good Web site for images on taxonomy of plants: http://www.google.com.mx/search?q=Taxonom%C3%ADa+de+plantas&client=safari&rls=en&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=ATm_UbjmO-iiyAHfrYGYAQ&ved=0CE0QsAQ&biw=1140&bih=1042

Other Web site is from Dan Diego State University: http://www.sci.sdsu.edu/plants/plantsystematics/

http://www.irishwildflowers.ie/ I found this site very helpful regarding British & Irish plant information.

Find also GRIN Taxonomy from Agricultural Research Service, USDA, Germplasm Resources Information Network: http://www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/npgs/html/index.pl?language=es

Check in this(http://www.flowersofindia.net) web link, it is also a great compilation of flowering plants found in India, You may find your plant match.

For southern African plants, see PlantZAfrica http://www.plantzafrica.com/

You can also send images to iSpot for identification http://www.ispot.org.za

Two more useful resources, an online tropical field guide available from the Department of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford at: http://herbaria.plants.ox.ac.uk/vfh/ and the online herbarium catalogue at RBG Kew, you can use advanced search to look for specimens with images at: http://apps.kew.org/herbcat/gotoSearchPage.do

Http://www.atlas-roslin.pl/

Try this website http://botany.csdl.tamu.edu/FLORA/gallery.htm

This website http://florida.plantatlas.usf.edu/ has many tropical and subtropical species found in Florida. The majority have images that can aid in identification.

You can also look on the TRAMIL website

Hi, You can try the site www.biorede.pt . Go to module Diversidade Vegetal and then you have two possibilities either Diversidade floristica or Chaves Ilustradas. The site was developed by me (Diversidade Animal) and other colleagues (other modules).

Good Luck

Ana Rodrigues

(Departamento de Biologia, Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal

Here is a reliable botanical identification of plants in Taiwan. Tons of line drawings, keys, descriptions, locations found and habitat. Very useful e-book. All you need to do is to type in the genus name and start exploring

Here is a reliable botanical identification of plants in Taiwan. Tons of line drawings, keys, descriptions, locations found and habitat. Very useful e-book. All you need to do is to type in the genus name and start exploring

http://tai2.ntu.edu.tw/ebook.php?ebook=Fl.%20Taiwan%202nd

You may try http://www.inaturalist.org/ if you want pictures... it is still incipient for some Latin American countries, but the assistance of taxonomists to identify your plants based on photos is offered at the website. In any case, consider uploading your pics even if you've determined through any other means them to strengthen the database.

What region of the world are you looking for the plants in?

Anthos is an initiative from the Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid (Spain) and it is the most reliable website for the Iberian Peninsula flora. http://www.anthos.es/ (available both in Spanish and English)

Do you want a chinese one? "www.planta.cn", an excellent website for plant identification also so for other aspects in botany.

Look for Mediterranean plants in the Western Mediterranean Virtual Herbarium (http://herbarivirtual.uib.es) with high definition images and descriptions in Spanish and English.

http://www.dryades.eu/home1.html

This is a very good website

Http://www.flora-on.pt/ this one is for portugal

Try http://www.flora-on.pt/

Would be useful to know which geographical area you are interested in. If you're not looking for rare plants that are likely to have only been photographed by botanists themselves then perhaps try Flickr, an increasingly popular place for people sharing their wildflower photos. There are groups such as the 'Wildflower Field Guide, North America' (http://www.flickr.com/groups/wildflowers/) that have built up a reasonably large database of flower photos, searchable via colours and number of petals (see: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zen/28900588/)

There are also specific 'Identification request' groups such as 'ID Please' (http://www.flickr.com/groups/id_please/) where knowledgeable people from around the world try to help you identify the organism photographed.

guarda si Axta Plantarum

Guarda Acta Plantarum

FRLHT ENVIS is good website from India

Look at Epidendra.org if you are interested in Orchids, especially from the New Tropics

Take a look on this website

http://www.botany.com/

And these two for Iberian Peninsula plants: http://www.flora-on.pt and http://www.anthos.es.

Salamo alaikom,

Find as attached file a "practical guide for plant identification" which could be interesting to you. Bonne lecture.

Dear Rita. you can search in the fieldmuseum page: http://herbaria.plants.ox.ac.uk/vfh/image/index.php?taxonomy=693&last=5

Over the last few years I have been developing a new type of botanical database for Fritillaria (http://www.fritillariaicones.com) a spring geophyte found across much of the northern temperate zone. Many are used for traditional medicine in China, there formed an important food source for hunter gatherer societies and most are of conservation concern.

Image sets contain details for accurate taxonomic determination. If the accession was included in published research the paper is quoted with the image. Many accessions have been sampled for on-going genetic research and details will be added when work is published. Each image set is downloadable as a PDF with the accession number identified in the URL. Therefore any taxonomic change will not result in a change to the URL and any reference to the individual PDF will remain current.

Flavia, http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

For brazilian plants look for http://splink.cria.org.br

Rita, tente neste endereço: http://florabrasiliensis.cria.org.br/index

Try also this website http://www.ipni.org/ipni/plantnamesearchpage.do

Www.plantsystematics.org

You could find your interest over there

http://www.ethnobotanybd.com/

In France we have "Belles fleurs de France" from Erick Dronnet.

http://erick.dronnet.free.fr/belles_fleurs_de_france/

For Italy there is "Acta Plantarum" by Italian professional and amateur botanists. It's simply great.

http://www.actaplantarum.org/floraitaliae/

For the U.S. and its territories, you can use the PLANTS Database that provides information about the vascular plants, mosses, liverworts, hornworts, and lichens.

http://plants.usda.gov/java/

Googlle images can be surprisingly good, although similar species often pop up when you search for a particular image. As far as nomenclature, Kew Gardens' The Plant List http://www.theplantlist.org/ and Missouri Botanical Gardens' W3Tropicos (mentioned above) are excellent. USDA Plants is fairly good although nomenclature is sometimes questionable. In Arizona, we're fortunate to have the Southwest Environmental Information Network (SEINet) at http://swbiodiversity.org/seinet/collections/index.php If you click on a plant name after a search photographs and images of herbarium sheets are often available.

Check RBG, Kew

For portuguese flora you have www.flora-on.pt

Take a look in www.botanical.com

There are two that I find very useful: USDA Plants Database and Atlas of Florida Vascular Plants.

Both of these you do need to have an idea of what the plant is before you go looking but I find that with a key I can get very close and then I verify with these two websites. Since I am in Florida the Atlas of Florida Vascular Plants is my most used one.

Atlas of Florida Vascular Plants website: http://florida.plantatlas.usf.edu/

USDA Plant Database: http://plants.usda.gov/java/

Wow this is turning out to be a fantastic resource !

Are you interested in any specific part of the world, or ecosystem ? http://www.visualplants.de/

is another site with images from tropical forests (Costa Rica, Ecuador etc).

Flora-on (http://www.flora-on.pt/), also recommended by Maria Espirito-Santo, is very reliable. It is in Portuguese and is only for species that occur in Portugal, but as you'll see we have a very diverse Flora!

Is there any database for Himalayan flora??

The best in South Africa is www.plantzafrica.co while iSpot is useful. You can also look at www.operationwildflower.org.za

For aquatic plants, see http://yuyoshieito2010.web.fc2.com/index.html.

Thank you all for a very helpful discussion with a lot of useful links. As a Plant Scientist I am happy to be in this group. Best wishes and looking forward for a more cordial botanist family.

You can see more than 120 K images of around 3 600 species, of the french flora. On the advanced research you can select family, genus or species, and add some tags such as "flower, fruit, etc." but only in french. This site is updated everyday : http://www.tela-botanica.org/appli:pictoflora

Please, see http://www.plantarium.ru/

see www.anthos.org for Spain

I suggest the western Mediterranean Virtual Herbarium [http://herbarivirtual.uib.es/eng-med/index.html]. It collects information and a wide gallery of images of the vascular plants in the western Mediterranean basin.

Try this website:

www.plantsystematics.org

As this thread is deviating from the initial question about Bignoniaceae of South America and becoming a list of botanical web resources, can I suggest the amazing and highly illustrated interactive key to the rain forest flora of northern and eastern Australia?

http://www.anbg.gov.au/cpbr/cd-keys/rfk/index.html

The "Galería de Plantas" of "Biodiversidad Virtual" project includes a lot of idenfied photos of plants from Iberian Peninsula and Canary Islands (wild and cultivated).

http://www.biodiversidadvirtual.org/herbarium/

Go to Google, and search "I spot or try this: http://www.ispot.org.za/. That's for South African plants.

You may explore the website of Royal Botanic Garden, Kew (http://www.kew.org/).

Cal's Plant of the Week has 564 different plants with pictures and culture/propagation notes for each. Cal was the greenhouse manager at the University of Oklahoma and he retired in 2011, so he is no longer adding to the site. However, there's a lot of useful information.

Here's the link for species/common names/families page:

http://www.plantoftheweek.org/overview.shtml

This is an excellent site for Mexican plants, and they are not all 'weeds' http://www.conabio.gob.mx/malezasdemexico/2inicio/home-malezas-mexico.htm

This is a good website for all living organisms in Australia:

http://www.ala.org.au/

Photos of ferns and lycophytes are hosted here:

http://www.fernsoftheworld.com/

Hi, check http://www.ufrgs.br/fitoecologia/florars/ for southern Brazil and nearby regions. It's a collaborative initiative with many plant taxonomists in the background.

See Acta Plantarum website (http://www.actaplantarum.org/), excellent for the Italian flora.

For Mediterranean flora: http://herbarivirtual.uib.es/cat-med/index.html

http://www.hoseito.com/ is also useful since it contains really good photos of many details for identification

Hi Rita! There is a new site in Brazil called Reflora: http://reflora.jbrj.gov.br/ . This site brings together a series of exsiccates of brazilian plants deposited in foreign herbaria. I recomend you to try this one too http://florabrasiliensis.cria.org.br/fviewer . In this you can see antique drawings of brazilian flora made by important naturalists.

Two good resources from a systematics perspective: the Angiosperm Phylogeny website (http://www.mobot.org/MOBOT/research/APweb/welcome.html), and plantsystematics.org. The former has lots of detail on character evolution and phylogenetic relationships, but fewer images, while the latter is mostly images. In both cases you can be pretty sure the IDs for the images are reliable.

Www.botanical.com

Http://www.worldagroforestrycentre.org/our_products/databases

has links to many databases for species popular in agroforestry worldwide

Howdy folks,

A site with references to old and modern flora guides is to be found at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flora The references guide you to the different continents and their flora guides.

Another initeresting initiative is initiated by Kew Gardens in London. Kew is organising - with three other Institutes - the production of the first Flora of global plant species. Clearly till that flora comes into being, scientists interested in species identification at the global scale - which I assume is the case here - will have to do their data mining themselves with sources like those found on the wikipedia site.

A description of the Kew Garden plans can be found at:

http://www.kew.org/about-kew/press-media/press-releases-kew/plans-to-create-first-online-world-flora/

I hope Kew can make this flora of global plant species come into being. It would be an important primer, a tremendous effort and an invaluable resource for plant science and related science disciplines like plant ecology, sociology, etc.., etc,... Hopefully the Flora of Global Plant Species will be standardized. I have no doubt it will be.

Cheers,

Frank

See

http://www.wsl.ch/dendro/xylemdb/index.php

Fernsoftheworld.com and plantsystematics.com

i can also idvice you http://www.ville-ge.ch/cjb/bd_en.php#africa . it a kind of portal. where you could find links like http://www.tropicos.org/

you may find botanical description of plant from Africa

On http://www.verspreidingsatlas.nl/planten is a moderated list of Dutch flowering plants (and see also links for bryophytes, lichens and fungi) (Dutch language)

Vc já tentou http://www.tropicos.org/Home.aspx ?

This website is a research project developed between 2005 and 2007. The objective of this study is to examine Iberian Iron Age flora (VI-I centuries BC) from a number of perspectives in order to understand the use of plants and their symbolism in ancient societies and, more specifically, in ancient Iberia.

http://www.florayfaunaiberica.org