Plants For A Future - Database Search

The Field, Penpol, Lostwithiel, Cornwall, PL22 0NG, England
Telephone Bodmin (+44 1208) 873554

Back to Plants For A Future home page. Back to Database Intro.

The ASCII version

For those of you who haven't got a PC or a database management program the database is available in ascii format. This consists of a number of separate files one for each table in the database, i.e. files for edible, medicinal and other uses which look something like:

Abelia triflora[TAB]Wood[CR]
Abelmoschus esculentus[TAB]Fibre[CR]
Abelmoschus esculentus[TAB]Paper[CR]
Abelmoschus esculentus[TAB]Size[CR]
Abelmoschus moschatus[TAB]Essential[CR]
Abelmoschus moschatus[TAB]Fibre[CR]
Abelmoschus moschatus[TAB]Insecticide[CR]
Abelmoschus moschatus[TAB]Oil[CR]
Abelmoschus moschatus[TAB]Size[CR]

There are also files for the different habitats the plant prefers, interesting cultivars and the main table of species information. The latter has 54 different fields and is a bit hard to make sense of as it looks something like

Abelia triflora[TAB]R.Br. ex Wallich.[TAB]11, 200[TAB]Caprifoliaceae[TAB]
[TAB]Shrub[TAB]D[TAB]3.5[TAB]
3[TAB]6[TAB]0[TAB]None known[TAB]E. Asia - N.W. Himalayas.[TAB]
Dry scrub and rocky slopes in calcareous soils, 1200 - 4200m in Uttar Pradesh[146,158].
[TAB]LM[TAB]SN[TAB]DM[TAB]0[TAB]0[TAB]NB[TAB]0[TAB]1[TAB]0[TAB][TAB]S[TAB]
[TAB]0[TAB]0[TAB]0[TAB]0[TAB]0[TAB]0[TAB][TAB]6[TAB][TAB]H[TAB][TAB]
[TAB]None known[TAB]Zabelia triflora. (Wallich.)Makino.[TAB]
Requires a well-drained open loamy soil[11] in a 
sheltered sunny position[200]. Plants are best grown in 
...[CR]

It should be straight forward to import the ascii version into most database/speadsheat/wordprocessors on Unix/Mac/DOS boxes, including word/excel/filemaker. I've also got some standalone C programs which can do simple database lookups. And if you're really adventurous you could set up your home computer as a web server, and you could have your very own version of the web version of the database running at home. No need for all that online time. This is easy peasy on unix boxes and I've managed to do it on my home PC.

Details of the meaning of each field can be found on the page Main Headings. And the references in the bibliography

You can get hold of the ascii version from me webweaver@pfaf.org. See the page on Getting hold of the Database for more details.

Back to PFAF Home Page, Main Search Page, Help, Bibliography.

Plant information taken from the Plants For A Future - Species Database.
Copyright (c) 1997-2000. Last Update: Feb 2000.
WEB search engine by Rich Morris - Home Page
Plants for a Future, The Field, Penpol, Lostwithiel, Cornwall, PL22 0NG, UK.
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