guide to identification of flora and fauna

nightshade · #1 (**permalink**) 01-10-2005, 05:38 PM

some of the requests for identification of plants for example most people take photos of the flower but a general view to include leaves,stem,location, would be useful. the first part of the postcode would help as well
some sort of scale,for insects fungi,etc.posing for any special features
i am sure that some bright person reading this could produce a pocket card for guidance

Turtletagger · #2 (**permalink**) 21-02-2006, 09:04 AM

Just going through the threads and found this one. Sorry to say Im'e not clever enough to identify the plants but I have to say your pictures in the Gallery are very good and well deserve to be identified. I hope by resurecting this thread that someone will come forward and help

nightshade · #3 (**permalink**) 21-02-2006, 07:38 PM

Turtletagger hello, you could try the FSC guides,www.alanaecology.com under field guides
these are folding, laminated, pocket guides they may or may not suit I have the bat guide and a couple more (somewhere) useful to carry about check them out

Turtletagger · #4 (**permalink**) 24-02-2006, 08:28 AM

Thanks for the info, I will look for the books on Botany in the charity shops. I am a pensioner on the basic pension so cannot afford to buy brand new books. I also don't buy on the net because I don't have a bank card, gave them up three years ago.

nightshade · #5 (**permalink**) 24-02-2006, 08:57 AM

Turtletagger,I hear what you say ,but you can phone Alanaecology they are very helpful The sheets I referred to are around £5.Visit charity shops, I have picked up some good books there,Oxfam and the Heart charity seem best in my high street
Loook for the readers digest field guide to wild flowers and their countryside guides the AA do a good one
As you are obviously gifted with the silver tongue try asking them to put books aside,my copy was outback not put out for sale and is very useful
Market bookstalls like to help as well I was made redundant 10 years ago and
looked forward to searching the various outlets,even now I am working again
I still trawl the charity shops for books and a chat!

Imaginos · #6 (**permalink**) 02-03-2006, 08:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nightshade

some of the requests for identification of plants for example most people take photos of the flower but a general view to include leaves,stem,location, would be useful. the first part of the postcode would help as well
some sort of scale,for insects fungi,etc.posing for any special features
i am sure that some bright person reading this could produce a pocket card for guidance

Some good points here Nightshade. My better half works in the herbarium at Kew &, as you would expect, they get sent quite a lot of material for identification. Even these botanical luminaries are quite often stumped when presented with a couple of leaves & asked to name the species.
Unfortunately there's a bit of a circular arguement when it comes to what bits of the plant to photograph-if you know what species is, you know which bits to photograph for identification, if you don't, you don't. Same applies to insects, you'll see some of the comments in the Gallery are along the lines of 'the back leg's out of focus so can't be sure'.
So, if you really want to know what something is take as many pictures of as many parts of the plant/insect as you can, if you don't put them all in the Gallery/in a forum post initially you can keep some available for somebody who wants to try an ID.

henrya · #7 (**permalink**) 02-03-2006, 08:43 AM

Quote
So, if you really want to know what something is take as many pictures of as many parts of the plant/insect as you can, if you don't put them all in the Gallery/in a forum post initially you can keep some available for somebody who wants to try an ID.
Endquote

Excellent advice, Imaginos. Also, don't necessarily concentrate on the most obvious features. Several times I've photographed or described in detail some unusual feature of an insect or plant, only to be asked "But did it have two or three hairs on the back leg/did it have hollow stems?"

henrya

Walwyn · #8 (**permalink**) 16-03-2006, 06:29 PM

Back in December I was in London and I stumbled across one of the live lectures that they do at the Natural History Museum.
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/s...ive/index.html

The lecture was about a program they are developing to automatically identify an organism from a photograph. They're aim was that you would take the photograph send it their centre and the software would tell you what it was. The idea being that you could do it whilst out in the field with your mobile phone camera.

Probably a few years off though.