Lichen Names Database at Smithsonian

[Rusty Russell]

News Item:

The Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Department
of Botany (US National Herbarium) has a new internet accessible database
available through its Web site.  Ellen Farr, Beatrice Wilde Hale, and Paula
DePriest have completed and posted "Parmeliaceae: A Searchable List of Names
in the Parmelioid Genera (Lichens)."  The database is an updated and
internet-accessible form of an electronic database originally developed in
the late 1980s by Smithsonian Lichen Curator Mason E. Hale, Jr. (1928-1990).
 Volunteer Beatrice W. Hale spent over five years editing and updating the
list -- adding new and omitted epithets, correcting spellings, and
modernizing the classification -- and recently published it with co-author
DePriest (Bryologist 102: 462-544. 1999).  The new database structure, set
up by Farr in Microsoft Access with a Web interface developed using Cold
Fusion, allows searches by genus name or species epithet, provides accepted
names and generates lists of synonyms.  The goal of the database project was
to provide a convenient reference for locating
the accepted genus among 35 recent generic segregates of Parmelia sensu latu
for over 2,500 species epithets. Already the database has proved a valuable
tool for locating species and specimens among various classification schemes
in publications and in the US National Herbarium.  Visit the Department of
Botany's home page
(http://www.nmnh.si.edu/departments/botany.html) and look in the "Research"
section or under "Lichens" in the site index.

Paula DePriest
Associate Curator                     Telephone:  (202) 357-2545 office
Department of Botany                              (301) 238-3790 lab
National Museum of Natural History    Fax:        (202) 786-2563
Smithsonian Institution        Email:      depriest at onyx.si.edu
Washington, DC  20560
See my site on the web: http://www.nmnh.si.edu/botany/projects/lichens/