Is there a way to alphabetize our personal plant lists by botanical name? Many plants have multiple common names often determined by geographical areas. I found some of the plants on my list under names I have never heard before.

Currently, that's not possible, sorry!

Well dang, I have been trying to organize my photos and plant lists and have about 600 plants on an outdated list I wanted to move here so I could have things all in one place but if I can't find find what I am looking for when it is needed, it won't help.

You can enter your plants without "associating" them with plants in the database, using any name you want for them, and the list will be alphabetized by the names you've entered.

Interesting. I don't believe I ever intentionally associated them and a number are listed with names I have never heard of so someone or some algorithm chose how they are listed. I know a number of folks prefer common names but if you ever move across country you will see how useless so many of them are.

I don't recommend that. Doing it that way will unlink them from the database and you will lose a tremendous number of benefits and features.

It's also possible (likely, even) that in the future I'll make it so they can be sorted by latin name but such a functionality will only work for plants that are linked to database entries.

Also note that when you view your list, you can select a genus from the pulldown to view all plants in that genus.

Gotcha,
OK, just out of curiosity, how are the common names chosen?

Whichever common name is in the database that has the most thumbs is the one that gets chosen as that plant's default name.

Ardesia, if you are using the "My List" feature, it does alphabetize by botanical name. The common name appears first in the listing, which is a bit odd, but you get used to it. In my list, for example, the first entry is Grand Fir, Abies grandis. All the Acers come next, even though their common names are some sort of maple. I also find it helpful to make use of the personal categories. I categorize my plants by type (tree, perennial, vine, etc.) and also by characteristic (aromatic, medicinal, native, etc.). That way, I can work with smaller lists to clean things up, add photos, and enter comments. If you are new to My List, I would suggest poking around at other folks' lists to see how they have structured them. Lots of good ideas out there.

But, perhaps you are using another list feature here that I am unfamiliar with?

Thanks, I'll look into that.