[AGA Member] Aquatic Plant key availability (fwd)

[Erik Olson <erik@thekrib.com>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 12:56:31 -0700
From: Shaun Winterton <SWinterton@cdfa.ca.gov>
To: Crypts@bart.nl, tcbiii@earthlink.net, erik@thekrib.com
Subject: Aquatic Plant key availability

To those with a wider interest in aquatic plants,

I am pleased to announce that the interactive identification key to "Aquarium and Pond Plants of the World" is completed and now available. This key was demonstrated by myself at the Dallas-FW AGA meeting last year. This is a USDA, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) project to develop a rapid and more accurate means of identifying aquarium plants in shipments entering the United States. While designed for that task, the key is also very useful to quarantine people, aquatic botanists, aquatic plant nurseries, wholesalers and amateur aquatic plant hobbyists all over the world. 

The key is developed in Lucid format, so it requires the preinstallation of Lucid player from the website (www.lucidcentral.org). It is an interactive key available on CD or online, and uses a wealth of character state images to enable the user to simply match the picture that looks like the unidentified plant in front of them. The key covers over 125 genera of aquatic plants, mosses, ferns, etc. that are commonly (and uncommonly) sold in the aquarium and pond plant trades worldwide. It includes detailed fact sheets along with image galleries of various species in each genus, including emersed and submersed growth forms and flowers.

Go to the link below for more details, including links to the Lucidcentral website to do a number of things such as:

1. Purchase a copy of the Lucid player [actually relatively inexpensive] or download a demostration version (with some of the fancy buttons disabled, but it still runs the key fine).

2. Get contact details for USDA-APHIS to get a CD copy of the key (with large format images, etc.)

3. or, run the online version of the key which is served on the Lucid central website. This option has web-optimised images [lower quality] but runs fine, especially if you have high-speed internet access.

Link to information website:

http://home.earthlink.net/~shaunw2/plant_key/aquatic%20plant%20key%20link.html 

There are a large number of people that helped me during development of this key, make sure you check out the Acknowledgements page to see who they were, including links to their websites. You will recognise many of them.

Please feel free to forward this email announcement to other lists or to aquatic plant people that you think may be interested.

Cheers,

Shaun Winterton..



Shaun L. Winterton, PhD

Plant Pest Diagnostics
California Department of Food & Agriculture
3294 Meadowview Rd.
Sacramento, CA 95832, USA
phone: (916) 262 1149
email: swinterton@cdfa.ca.gov 
or WintertonShaun@netscape.net


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