As so many of us are feverishly entering new plants, new pictures and new data proposals into our new database, I got to thinking about the use and sources for reliable scientific names. This past winter while editing my garden inventory to reflect scientific names first, I found several web based resources which I’ve continued to rely on in working with our database. The American Iris Society (AIS) “Iris Wiki” and The Species Iris Group of North America (SIGNA) “Species Database” are both very useful and definitive. For other plants I use the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) and Kew World Checklist of Selected Plant Families. The Missouri Botanical Garden (MOBOT) is my first choice for data proposals.

I’d love to hear more about the resources you rely on and which sites you’ve found to be the most reliable.

Here are links to the sites mentioned:
http://aiswiki.mallorn.com/bin...
http://www.signa.org/index.pl?...
MOBOT new website:
http://www.missouribotanicalga...
http://www.itis.gov/index.html
http://apps.kew.org/wcsp/prepa...

Added:
The Plant List is another DB for taxonomic information which lists accepted or not. http://www.theplantlist.org/

The Royal Horticultural Society 'Plant Selector', like MOBOT, has good information on many plants. http://apps.rhs.org.uk/plantse...
The RHF 'Plant Finder' is helpful for names research and sometimes parentage. http://apps.rhs.org.uk/rhsplan...

Evan, that's so helpful.
Thank you.

And, don't forget: http://www.plants.usda.gov/jav...

Great info - thanks!

This is fantastic, Evan! ITIS in particular is fantastic. I am looking at a way to get their data and do a big fact-check against our taxonomy all in one fell swoop.

dave said:! ITIS in particular is fantastic. I am looking at a way to get their data and do a big fact-check against our taxonomy all in one fell swoop.

Wow, that will be wonderful, a great tool to have and be able to do a fact-check every so often as new data is entered!

Wow again.

For sempervivum I use:
http://www.semperhorst.de/Inha...
http://miklanek.tripod.com/MCS...

for pronunciation, i use

http://overplanted.com/resourc...

Great information - thanks Frank!

For daffodils I use RHS and Daffseek mostly; also MOBOT and "Bulbs' by John Bryan.

http://daffseek.org/query/quer...
http://apps.rhs.org.uk/horticu...

Great site Frank!

Lately, I've been trying to learn more about Bromeliads, and I've found this one quite helpful…

http://www.fcbs.org/

Now that this thread has been resurrected, I want to caution people against using The Plant List to find accepted names. It hasn't been updated in a long time and much of the information there is obsolete. Try using the Catalogue of Life or GRIN instead.

http://www.catalogueoflife.org...

http://www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bi...

Another great one of Sempervivum is http://sempervivum-liste.de/
Very up to date.

I'm surprised to find that I can only find 4-5 listings for Citrullus lanatus (watermelon) in GRIN, ITIS and every other database I can find online.

The ATP Plant Database has nine pages of cultivars under Citrullus lanatus.
And the ATP Watermelon database has 838 cultivars

Do they just not care about cultivars? It seems like a rather ivory-tower attitude if part of their intention is to be useful to people who, for example, want to distinguish among Bok Choy, turnips and rapini!

Is there some other taxonomic database online that would let me search for cultivars? I was looking for seeds of Citrullus lanatus 'Schochler', and had trouble finding references to it other than an NC State University publication.

I haven't gotten much joy from USDA / ARS / GRIN / NCGRP / PGRCU either, but I have an email in to the Research leader of the S-009 Technical Committee (Southern region germplasm)). If part of their mission is to make rare seeds available, they sure hide their light under a bushel!

GRIN, ITIS, and other taxonomic databases list genera and species, not cultivars.

That explains it. And yet, don't some of them have thousands of "wheat"s?

For example, 3192 pages of "Triticum aestivum"
http://www.ars-grin.gov/npgs/a...

... I see, they call them "subspecies" like
Triticum aestivum subsp. aestivum POACEAE (wheat) RIL-153
Triticum aestivum subsp. aestivum POACEAE (wheat) RIL-152

I never look on those pages of GRIN. Those must be 3,192 pages of accessions. GRIN actually lists only Triticum aestivum and 7 subspecies of T. aestivum as accepted names.

Every site has its limitations. There is no one place to go, and there never will be. Taxonomy and breeding change so rapidly that as soon as a list is "finished", it is out of date. They are still finding new plant species in China every week! Now multiply that by at least 50 for cultivars in the world, and you can understand how daunting such a task would be.

For instance, GRIN focuses on "lifeforms important for food and agricultural production", but also updates its Taxonomic Nomenclature Checker with data from other sources. Reprinted from the site:
"While GRIN includes virtually all currently accepted generic names (over 14,000), please note that the representation of species is incomplete, especially for non-agricultural plants and their relatives, so some of your names may have to be checked elsewhere."

I won't even get in to the ICBN versus the ICNCP.

I like Biota of North America for distribution information. It's not perfect but it is very good.

Home Page - http://www.bonap.org/

US County-Level Species Maps: List by Genus - http://www.bonap.org/genera-li...