The Bromeliad cultivar registry online.
Subject: Cultivars (Collections and collecting)
Registers of births, etc. (Services)
Online information services (Services)
Information services (Services)
Online services (Services)
Bromeliaceae (Collections and collecting)
Author: Flower, Andrew
Pub Date: 11/01/2009
Publication: Name: Journal of the Bromeliad Society Publisher: Bromeliad Society International Audience: Academic Format: Magazine/Journal Subject: Biological sciences Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2009 Bromeliad Society International ISSN: 0090-8738
Issue: Date: Nov-Dec, 2009 Source Volume: 59 Source Issue: 6
Topic: Event Code: 360 Services information Computer Subject: Online information service
Product: Product Code: 4811520 Videotex & Teletext NAICS Code: 514191 On-Line Information Services SIC Code: 7375 Information retrieval services
Geographic: Geographic Scope: United States Geographic Code: 1USA United States
Accession Number: 229833543
Full Text: It has been some time since an up-to-date cultivar registry has been available online. A lot of work has been going on with a view to restoring this facility to the public, and we are nearing the stage where the BSI Cultivar Registrar will have a new, improved online cultivar registry available. Many of you will have been wondering what is going on, so here is a progress report as I see it. In particular, many non- members have been claiming that the BSI decided to withdraw the registry from public access: this fear is absolutly without foundation, and our Board is fully committed to restoring full online access to the public as well as our members (an interim BSI produced online database is already on our website).

The first online cultivar database was developed some 10 years ago by Michael Andreas, webmaster for the world-renowned fcbs.org site. Michael was asked to develop an online version for public view because at the time BSI officers and directors were unable or unwilling to do the work and host the online database on the bsi website. Thus the online cultivar registry was developed by Michael and Derek Butcher (BSI Cultivar Registrar at the time) and hosted on the fcbs website, with a link from it to the BSI website which made it look as though it was actually on the BSI site.

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The Cultivar Registry itself is owned and updated by the BSI, and maintence of an up-to-date registry is the responsibility of a BSI Officer, the Cultivar Registrar.

Over recent years the working relationship between Michael Andreas and some BSI Board members started to deteriorate, finally culminating in the removal of his online cultivar database by Michael. Following this breakdown in the relationship, the new BSI Cultivar Registrar, Geoff Lawn, has been developing a replacement solution for the BSI website (see figure 1). Geoff 's solution is based on a program designed and built by Eric Gouda to display the cultivar register online in a format that allows us to search out and find the cultivar records that match user requests, for example all the cultivars with a given parent, a certain cultivar name, or a given hybridiser. A bonus with this type of program is that it can also be distributed on a CD for those of us without internet access from home or the potting shed. Derek Butcher has also put in a huge amount of time assisting them.

Lets have a look at how the proposed new online registry works.

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The first set of search options, available on the home page, let us look through all sections of the database "All", just the cultivar names, the Breeder names or the parent plants linked to cultivars. In the example, I looked for cultivars registered in the name of Dimmitt, results shown in Figure 3.

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We can now click on one of the cultivar names, and the program will display the registration record for that cultivar, in this case Tillandsia 'Feather Duster' is shown in figure 4. Here we have photos of the plant (click on the photo and you get a larger version in a new window), hybrist's name if known, parents, and some notes plus a section showing where the cultivar is referred to--in this case references include Bird Rock Tropicals, Tropiflora's "Cargo Report" #7-3, BSI Journal and the illustration in "New Tillandsia Handbook."

The record for Tillandsia 'Mystic Albert' (figure 5) shows the addition of a lengthy text document, detailing the background to this and other T. albertiana hybrids.

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Andrew Flower, BSI Editor.
Gale Copyright: Copyright 2009 Gale, Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.