Autors: Pier Luigi Nimis, Simonetta Bagella, Maria Carmela Caria, Rossella Filigheddu, Andrea Moro, Elena Pittao, Stefano Martellos


This tool allows even non-experts in Botany to 'explore' the rich flora of the temporary ponds of Sardinia (Italy).
The system consists of two query interfaces:
1) The first is a multi-entry interface where you can specify a set of easily observable characters such as habitus, leaves, flowers and / or fruits of a plant which you want to identify. The result will be a photo gallery of all the plants that possess the specified characters. Clicking on the name of each species, you’ll obtain a taxon page with more images, a distribution map in Italy, and a list of Italian common names (the version in Italian also has notes to each species).
2) The second interface, which is activated only after using the first one, is a richly illustrated dichotomous key for the species that have been selected using the multi-entry interface.
Experts can also use the first interface to create keys to all species of a given genus or a given family present in the flora of study area. Currently, the interface is in the testing phase and is published online to gather comments and corrections from users. We would be grateful for any feedback for improving it (please write to Prof. Pier Luigi Nimis - nimis@units.it).