How the search works in efloraofindia site ?

[J.M. Garg]

Dear members,

Search in efloraofindia site, carries many advantage over manual browsing as it shows results of similar/ confusing species also.

I will explain this by giving an example. e.g. On searching on ''Codonopsis viridis'', I got the results in the following order:

Codonopsis viridis

Codonopsis

Codonopsis rotundifolia

Campanulaceae

Valley of flowers- List of plants

The above shows that results have been shown on priority with main search page being shown first. Genera page Codonopsis is shown because it contains details & comparative images of all the species including the searched one. Codonopsis rotundifolia is shown as it has been confused with the searched species in some earlier efi discussions. In fact two of the posts of Codonopsis rotundifolia were wrongly identified earlier as Codonopsis viridis, which I corrected yesterday. Family page of Campanulaceae is shown as it contains comparative images of all the Codonopsis species including that of the searched one. Valley of flowers- List of plants is also shown as it also contains the name of plants, including that of the searched one, found in the valley of flowers.

The above search results tells you a lot of things, which may be helpful to the searcher in many ways including getting proper identification.

e.g. if somebody posts images of Codonopsis viridis, while including in efi site, I will search on Codonopsis viridis and get these results. Than I will open both pages of Codonopsis viridis and Codonopsis rotundifolia in separate windows. After going through images at both species pages, I will conclude to myself whether posted species has been correctly identified or not. If it does not match with images at either of the pages, than I will also open the page of Codonopsis for seeing the comparative images and finally nailing down the id & advising so on the group.

I hope this exercise has lessons to those who are not aware of the importance of this aspect.

Pl. give your feedback, if you feel it has been of some use to you.

--

With regards,
J.M.Garg

'Creating awareness of Indian Flora & Fauna'

Winner of Wipro-NFS Sparrow Awards 2014 for efloraofindia. 

For identification, learning, discussion & documentation of Indian Flora, please visit/ join our Efloraofindia Google e-group (largest in the world- around 2800 members & 2,65,000 messages on 31.3.17) or Efloraofindia website (with a species database of more than 12,000 species & 2,50,000 images).

The whole world uses my Image Resource of more than a thousand species & eight thousand images of Birds, Butterflies, Plants etc. (arranged alphabetically & place-wise). You can also use them for free as per Creative Commons license attached with each image.

Also author of 'A Photoguide to the Birds of Kolkata & Common Birds of India'.