Who Should (Should not) Find Families Key Useful

This page last modified on 20 January, 2007

Primary Purpose

The primary purpose for using this key is to locate (quickly and with least effort) the most likely Genus, and make a reasonably good guess about the Species, of a plant of interest to you.  

For fundamental reasons, which are summarized in the preceding note (Why One Would Want to Use a Multiple-Entry Key), you should use The Jepson Manual or a more recent recognized resource to verify that the plant matches (virtually) all known characteristics of the Species and Genus.  I've provided a "Profile" page for each (sub)Species in the key. That page lists all of those known characteristics coded into the key, and additionally provides statistics which should help you to judge which details may need to be checked in TJM.

For People Who Don't (yet) Recognize the Genus at a Glance

My initial hope was that it would be possible to keep this "Families" key relatively small (e.g. compared with the big Asteraceae key), with the goal to permit a user to identify the botanic family. Except for the very large families (Asteraceae especially, and 5 to 10 others), I've generally found the TJM Family and Genus level keys quite useful after I'm reasonably certain that I've found the correct family.  But the accepted Family associations of many common Genera have been changing in recent years, with much of the change motivated because DNA and related molecular research has shown the traditional morphology (physical description) based relationships are wrong.  A few of the Genera have now been split among two or more Families, but in most flowering wildflower Genera of the San Diego County region the species have stayed together. Thus the goal for using the key to to help the user find the Genus and Species descriptions in TJM, as those generally have remained little changed. Some of the Genus and Species names have changed, but the indexes of the SDNHM Checklist, version 4, provide a convenient way to get back to the names used in the 1993 (current) edition of TJM.

The Family association of most Asteraceae Species is easily recognized, once one has reached quite modest familiarity with the plants of our region. Almost the same can be said for a few other large families that are represented by numerous common plants in our area.  But it's the less common Species from the 60 or more smaller families for which I've found the TJM keys to identify Families are almost useless.

In building this Lucid3 based "Families" key, I've found it necessary to encode details down to the Species level for plants that serve as examples. The detail available in the TJM Family Descriptions, and in many of the Genus Descriptions, is often not sufficient to permit the key lead one effectively to descriptions of a plant sample one has in hand.  To include known details for all of the 1000+ wildflower species known in San Diego County will be a time consuming project at best.  I'm hoping that the examples I'm able to provide, initially based on plant photographs I've placed on this website so far, will be sufficient to give material assistance to others seeking to identify unusual plants they have found. 

For Experts Interested in Knowing the Current State of Recognized ID Keys

I've found a brief review of statistical patterns in the TJM data (as coded into the Lucid3-based key) is quite revealing about the current state of knowledge regarding botanic species.  Those patterns can be viewed and analyzed using tools provided with the Lucid3-3 Builder program.  They cannot easily be viewed with the key itself, but to some extent can be seen using my Profile pages for the taxa currently coded in the key.

In connection with the SDNHM Plant Atlas project, I'm planning to make copies of the data coded into the key available for review by others who have installed a copy of the Builder on their own machines. Much of what's potentially interesting can be viewed using a not-yet-licensed copy of the Builder, either within the Lucid3 Trial System, or in the full Lucid3 system, which you can download from the LucidCentral website (link on the overview page for my key). (You cannot Save a modified version of the key, nor various associated product files, until you purchase and activate a license for the Lucid3 system from the CBIT store.) 

-- Ken Bowles