October 1, 1999

An Encyclopedic Data Base About Plants Will Soon Flower on the Internet

By VINCENT KIERNAN

As far as Shakespeare was concerned, "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." To botanists, however, making sure that a plant is correctly named is a matter of utmost concern: The name indicates the plant's relationship to other species and varieties of plants.

Now three groups of botanists are collaborating to compile a free data base that would be an authoritative record, on the Internet, of the names of every flowering plant on earth.

The effort is one of several in

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