AU1stral iaVJ S~stematic BotaVJ~ Societ~ NEWSLETTER No. 51 JUNE 1987 Price: $3.50 Registered by Australia Post Publication No. NBH 8068 AUSTRALIAN SYSTEMATIC BOTANY SOCIETY IN CORPORA TED OFFICE BEARERS President Dr B.G. Briggs National Herbarium Mrs Macquaries Road SYDNEY, N.S.W. 2000 Vice President Secretary Treasurer DrJ.G. West Australian National Herbarium DrL.Haegi Dr D.B. Foreman C.S.I.R.O. State Herbarium National Herbarium G.P.O. Box 1600 North Terrace Birdwood Avenue CANBERRA, A.C.T. 2601 ADELAIDE, S.A. 5000 SOUTH YARRA, Vic. 3141 Councillors DrM. Crisp Mr R. Henderson Australian National Botanic Gardens Queensland Herbarium G.P.O. Box 158 Meiers Road CANBERRA, A.C.T. 2601 INDOOROOPILLY, Qld. 4068 Chapter Convenors Adelaide Dr Barbara Randell Hobart Dr Tony Orchard Armidale Mr John Williams Melbourne Mr Stephen Forbes Brisbane Mr Laurie Jessup Perth Dr Terry Macfarlane Canberra Mr Alex George Sydney Prof. Roger Carolin Darwin Mr Clyde Dunlop Townsville Dr Betsy Jackes Affiliated Society: Papua New Guinea Botanical Society Austral. Syst. Bot. Soc. Newsletter 51 JUNE 1987 THE DATA SYSTEMS OF THE WESTERN AUSTRALIAN HERBARIUM J,W. Green Western Australian Herbarium The Western Australian Herbarium has assembled a comprehensive set of integrated, computer-based systems for collecting, editing, managing, retrieving and printing specimen label data. The purpose of this article is to summarise these systems, and to draw attention to detailed papers on particular aspects. 1. Field data collection. A specialised data base system, compr1s1ng original software and using either the Sharp PC1600 pocket computer or the Epson PX-8 lap-top portable, has been established and tested. This allows field data to be entered directly as specimens are collected, facilitating editing and data manipulation during specimen preparation and permitting fast preparation of labels. The field system was inspired by the release of the remarkably miniaturised Sharp machine, which has 80 kp of RAM yet can easily be hand held and belt-mounted. This allowed the writer to develop quite a sophisticated program, complete with editing, updating and repetition facilities, yet still leaving room for storage of some 30 specimens per file. Since each file is easily transferrable to microfloppy disk, and E!a ~h ~di ~k _ll.o! ds ~()Ve r_ seven__!ul)~ f i_:l.es L_ thE!__Ca£acit;y_ for_~.e_e~i_llle!!_~~~OEa:J~ becomes limitless in practical terms. Furthermore an associated printer allows hard copy to be taken when convenient, e.g,, daily. Bar codes can be used as field identifiers if desired. The above program has been adapted to run on the Epson lap-top, which confers a number of advantages on users who stay close to a vehicle or a fixed field station with power supply. More specimens can be collected per file, editing facilities are better (via Portable WordStar), the keyboard is full-sized and data can be saved on microcassettes. Also, a bar code reader can be attached if required. However, if printed output were required a separate printer would be needed, and probably a mains power supply to run it. For further details see references (1) and (2). 2. WAHERB, the main specimen data base. The w.A. Herbarium uses the TITAN Information Management System, running on a Unison D21 microcomputer, to record specimen lab1el data. During the first phase, which commenced in 1985, some 60,000 specimens were entered, comprising the taxa Amaranthaceae, Orchidaceae, Poaceae, Asteraceae 1 bcaci.9, Droseraceae, some Papilionaceae and the plant pathology collection. ThiS phase was made possible by ABRS and CEP grants, but is now at an end, owing to termination of grant support. Further funding is being sought to continue. current acquisitions in logged taxa are being inserted by regular staff, as time permits. Even the small percentage so far entered has proved useful: many requests for retrievals have been satisfied and the system has been used for research and to document loans. 2 Austral. Syst. Bot. Soc. Newsletter 51 JUNE 1987 Data acquired in the field, using the system mentioned above, has been transferred from the Sharp and Epson to the Unison, where it will be loaded into either an intermediate TITAN database or directly into WAHERB, depending on circumstances. Labels have been produced directly from both Sharp and Epson field data, using a program developed by the writer. Alternatively, labels can be printed via TITAN using a unix script writ ten by the TITAN support team. such a script has been used successfully by herb. NSW, and is expected to be running at PERTH shortly. For further details see (3). 3. Bar codes. The W.A. Herbarium has pioneered the use of specially printed bar code number stickers as unique specimen sheet identifiers which serve as the key numbers essential for data base purposes as well as facilitating fast accurate recording of data by light pen. While the data base is incomplete, they also serve to indicate which specimens have been entered. Normally bar codes are applied at the time mounted specimens are entered into the data base. An alternative usage was tested in the field: backed bar code stickers were placed in cellophane bags which were stapled to specimens as they were collected, These numbers were then entered into the field data computer, while normal sequential personal numbers were generated internally. As the field system now stands this bar code procedure is available as an alternative to the use of conventional collection numbers. We chose Data Logic bar code reading equipment, because it is dedicated to that purpose. A slightly cheaper alternative is available to owners of an Epson PX-8, which has the option of a bar code interface and then only requires the wand (pen). We rejected this as we foresaw as unsatisfactory the Epson being constantly removed for other purposes. Further details are given in (4). 4. Latitude-longitude from plain language locality data. The writer has developed a program for computing latitudes and longitudes from a variety of plain-language locality expressions, exemplified by the following: (1) 4.2 km NW of Moora; (2) 435 mile peg, North West Coastal Highway; (3) 13 km from Beverley towards Brookton; (4) Between Condingup and Esperance; (5) 6 miles past Williams on the Albany Highway; and (6) Coolgardie. The program is in FORTRAN, runs on the Department of Agriculture's Prime 9950 and utilises data supplied on tape by the Main Roads and Lands and Surveys Departments, notably a w.A. gazetteer of some 44,000 entries. Plans are afoot to integrate it into the TITAN system, and provision for this has been made in WAHERB in the form of special locality fields for direction, distance, etc. The output contains, in addition to latitude-longitude position, a precision code and map reference, to facilitate subsequent refining if desired, Comparisons with manually-determined positions have revealed an accuracy in the order of 2-4 km. At present computation is relatively slow (mean 34 sec.) owing to sequential file-searching, but work in progress is expected to reduce this time significantly. For further details see (5). Austral. Syst. Bot. Soc. Newsletter 51 JUNE 1987 3 REFERENCES (1) Green, J.W. Plant collecting with the aid of a pocket computer. Kingia 1(2) (in press). ( 2) Green, J. W. The manifold uses of the Epson PX-8 lap-top portable computer in herbarium work. A.S.B.S. Newsletter this issue. (3) Green, J.W., Macfarlane, T.D. & Maslin, B.R. WAHERB, the specimen data base of the Western Australian Herbarium. Submitted to Taxon. (4) Macfarlane, T.D., Green, J .w. & Maslin, B.R. Bar code specimen sheet numbers in use in the Western Australian Herbarium. Submitted to Taxon. (5) Green, J.W. The calculation of latitude and longitude from plain language locality data. Kingia 1(2) (in press.) Melaleuca lateritia from The Flora of the Perth Region 4 Austral. Syst. Bot. Soc. Newsletter 51 JUNE 1987 IN DEFENCE OF MELALEUCA ERUBESCENS Peter G. Wilson National Herbarium of N.s.w., Sydney In a recent paper, Byrnes (1986:266) places !· erubescens Otto in synonymy under the name M. diosmatifolia Dum,-cours. because of the priority of the latter name. However I it should be pointed out that the epithet 1 diosmatifolia 1 is merely an orthographic variant of 1 'diosmifolia , a fact that was recognized by Bentham (Fl. Aust. 3:159), de candolle (Prod. 3:214), Cheel (Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W. 58:189) and, presumably, Otto himself but not explicitly spelt out by any of these authors. Byrnes is, therefore, in error when he suggests that these 1 1 authors misspelled the name as diosmifolia ; Dumont de courset was the one with the spelling problem! The second part of the generic name Diosma, from which the epithet is derived, is a Greek first declension feminine noun (~) of which the combining stem is osm-, derived from its genitive ~· The name ~ is therefore only superficially similar to names ending in third declension neuter nouns such as derma and stoma which have the stems dermat- and stomat- as shown in their genitives-dermatos and stomatos. ---There is no other possible way of arriving at a stem 'diosmat- 1 (i.e., there is no generic name Diosmatos or noun 'diosmatum 1 or similar) so the epithet is an orthographic error and should be corrected (I.C.B.N., Art. 73.8). !• diosmifolia Dum.-cours. (Bot. cult. ed. 2 5: 1 373, 1811 'diosmatifolia ) is a later homonym of M. diosmifolia Andr. 1 1 (Bot. Repos. 476, 1807 diosmaefolia ) and must be rejected as superfluous. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT My thanks to Drs B. Briggs and 1.