I have created another duplicate plants report, this one searches all plants that do NOT have a cultivar field, and then looks for any duplicates. It found quite a surprising number of them.

The report is real-time (it updates every time you load it). You can see it here:

http://garden.org/plants/manag...

Looking at that list, I think I might need to start awarding acorns for plant deletion proposals!

This is very nice. Breaking them apart is very helpful. Loads/reloads a little slower but real time helps. What are the bracketed numbers?

I just updated this report script again so reload to see the latest version.

The numbers are explained at the top of the report. They are counting items associated with each plant.

[ Images | Comments | Data items ]

There is a delete item for each plant. If you click on "Delete" it will create a proposal for you already completed and the explanation automatically filled in. Then I can approve them all in one stroke. (I have a magic button that I can click that approves all proposals visible my screen).

The duplicates are listed in order, so if, for example, both plants that are duplicates each have zero images and zero comments, then theoretically it doesn't matter which one gets deleted. But in that case, delete the second one shown because that is the later one added.

So for most of these, I think one can run through and click "Delete" for the second one without even opening it up.

Common names and synonyms?

This report is currently only searching the primary genus/species of each plant.

Some time later I will expand that to checking all the synonyms and then I'm sure the list will be even longer.

In the meantime, I'm going to go through this list and knock it out real quick on the easy ones (those that have no images or comments).

Okay, I have automated the deletion of all duplicates that did not have any images or comments. There were 1,015 of them!

There are now only 4 duplicates left (until I add synonyms to the checker, at least).

It's now searching synonyms, too, but miraculously it didn't find a single additional duplicate.

Sorry Dave, I was unclear. If you could provide bracketed info. on Common Names and Synonyms we can could edit those into the entry we keep. By the way sweeet. Even if currently empty!

Ahh, gotcha. Well, at this point I think any additions to this report are a waste since it's basically empty...

Dave is there a reason I don't see any list when I use the above link?

The list is empty - there are no duplicates found.

That's a good thing.