Scott's Botanical Links--January 1997

January 30, 1997 - PBIO 100 - General Botany for Non-Majors

Web resources collected by James Reveal for beginning botany classes include slides shown in class, notes for each lecture (including relevant internal links and summaries for each topic at the end of the notes), sample examinations, and all of the material usually provided as hand-outs at the beginning of class. This is a model Web site for Introductory Botany that contains rich resources. This site was constructed by Dr. James L. Reveal, Department of Plant Biology, University of Maryland. (****)

January 29, 1997 - PBIO 250 Lecture Notes - Plant Taxonomy

For a plant taxonomy course site, this site presents "all of the usual information" plus lecture notes that are punctuated with well-selected external links that serve as excellent visual postscripts. For example, a short description of the botanical knowledge of the ancients contains links to agriculture 9000 years ago in Mesopotamia, a Assyrian herbal of the 7th century B.C., the Ebers medical papyrus with Egyptian medicinal plants from 1500 B.C., and Theophrastus. (Given its interactive multimedia nature and the number of links, the notes are best enjoyed using a high-speed connection.) If you are considering placing course materials on the Web, this site would be a good one to peruse. Although not all of the pages are uniformly polished, there are some very nice resources at this site, notably a guide to the different classification schemes and selected plant families. This site was constructed by Dr. James L. Reveal, Department of Plant Biology, University of Maryland. (***1/2)

January 28, 1997 - Cell Biology Lab Manual

Exercises in this tutorial/manual are at three levels, ranging from Level I (fundamental, requiring routine lab supplies and equipment) to Level III exercises (advanced, requiring lab equipment not readily available in an average college biology department). Detailed tutorials provide the background for the exercises. It appears that many could be readily adapted to labs (even intro labs) featuring plant cell biology. Chapters include: The Microscope, Histochemistry, Cell Fractionation, Electrophoresis, Enzymes, Membranes, Microsomes, Photosynthesis\ Respiration, Tubules\Filaments, Chromosomes, Cell Cycles, Cell Cultures, Differentiation, Nucleic Acids and The Central Dogma, with appendices on Units and Measures, Statistics, Graphs, Computers, Image Analysis, Centrifugation, Spectrophotometry, Radioactive tracers, Photography and Chemical Preparations. This site was constructed by William H. Heidcamp, Gustavus Adolphus College, Saint Peter, Minnesota, USA, with support by NSF. (****)

January 27, 1997 - Plant Fossils of West Virginia

A nice fossil site on the Carboniferous flora of the Mississippian and Pennsylvanian periods. The site features scans of fossil arborescent (Calamites) and herbaceous (Sphenophyllum) horsetail ancestors, arborescent lycopods (Lepidodendron, Sigillaria and related parts), and a wide variety of ferns (Alethopteris, Alloiopteris, Eusphenopteris, Mariopteris, Pecopteris, Sphenopteris, Neuropteris). This is a largely visual site with interesting narratives (more poetic than scientific), suitable for introducing plant fossils to beginners. This site was constructed by Monte and Harrison Hieb. (***1/2)

January 24, 1997 - Missouri Botanical Garden

The Missouri Botanical Garden has one of the most extensive collections of botanical material on the Web. The server map provides easy access to 37 different sites (including 5 national and international organizations), and there are more sites (like the International Botanical Congress site) that are not visible from the home page. The server hosts essentially every conceivable type of interest: images, conferences, virtual tours, plants in bloom, reading room, bookstore, information desk, and flora sites on four continents, with extensive botanical databases. The site is presented by the Missouri Botanical Garden. (****)

January 23, 1997 - BioAgMed INFOMINE

BioAgMed INFOMINE is an encyclopedic directory of WWW resources for biology, agriculture and medicine with amazing depth and breadth. Central to the site is a powerful and easy to use keyword-based search engine. For browsing, there is a well-developed Table of Contents and directories of links indexed by subject, keyword and title. A great resource, constructed and maintained by the INFOMINE Development Team, Library, University of California, Riverside. (****)

January 22, 1997 - Plant Virus Site

Featured on this site are pages on bymoviruses, electron micrographs of plant viruses (with iconless and icon-indexed lists of photos), sequences of plant viruses, sequences of plant viroids, and a mirror of the ICTVdB project virus databases maintained by Dr. Cornelia Büchen-Osmond at the Australian National University. Tragically, the trans-Atlantic transfer rates and the speed of the server are taxing, and downloads are time-consuming, even at T1 speeds. The EMs of plant viruses are nicely scanned, but the images are immense (1024 X 832, >500KB!). Nonetheless, it is an important resource in this area. Hosted by IACR-Rothamsted, U.K. (***)

January 21, 1997 - The Navasota Flora

The Navasota region is an area of SE Texas underlain by sandstone outcrops that help define the local flora. This site features the Navasota Outcrop Flora (a very nice virtual tour!!), an experimental key to families of flowering plants, native plants useful for landscaping, plants of Lick Creek Park, the Flynn Bog System (featured before), the local flora through time, and images from the TAMU Botany collection (also featured before, but worth revisiting!). Site constructed and maintained by Monique Reed, Biology Herbarium, Texas A & M University, College Station, TX. (****)

January 20, 1997 - Martin Luther King's Birthday (observed)

Site reviews resume tomorrow.

January 17, 1997 - Tree World

This site is an introductory site to the biology of trees that can be taken at a collegiate or pre-collegiate level. This is a very visually oriented set of pages that are exceptionally well done. In keeping with a lower level target group, this is not a particularly scholarly site. This is a production of Domtar Inc. in cooperation with Commission scolaire des Patriotes and the Ministère des Resources naturelles du Québec. (****)

January 16, 1997 - Access Excellence What's News

Access Excellence is a "place in Cyberspace for biology teaching and learning" sponsored by Genentech and aimed at all levels of education. This page links to science stories in the news. The current lead story is on Stanley Miller's experiments simulating the conditions of the early earth that might have been involved with creating the molecules of life. Resources at the end of articles are linked to other carefully chosen sites. Other regular features include Science Updates, Newsmaker Interviews, Factoids!, Media Watch, and The Editor's Desk. (****)

January 15, 1997 - Internet Resources for the Biologist

Strictly a links site, this page covers Web (WWW), Gopher, WAIS (Wide Area Information Servers) and FTP (File Transfer Protocol) resources useful to biologists. The list of links is reasonably encyclopedic. Entries are listed under headings, by server. Hosted by the Florida Caribbean Science Center. (****)

January 14, 1997 - Rainforest Action Network

This site is a political action site that calls attention to man's assaults on the rainforest environment. Using clever page selection techniques, an incredible amount of information is packed into a visually rich site, regarding news & updates, victories and what you can do about a variety of concerns. Both tropical and temperate rainforests are covered. Kids also are not left out of this interesting site. (Needless to say, donations accepted.) Organized by the Rainforest Action Network. (***1/2) [But where are the jungle sounds?]

January 13, 1997 - Bot 403-Plant Evolution

Wondering how to organize a Web page for a course? Sites differ from a "bare-bones" syllabus, to lecture notes, to elaborations of lecture topics, to sites worthy of recognition in their own right. This site is a sparing approach but one that includes the "main points to think about" in well-designed point form for each lecture, titles of assigned readings and a couple of links. This is a model for how to improve the "bare-bones" site right away, without losing too much time on learning HTML! Site constructed and maintained by Massimo Pigliucci, Department of Botany, University of Tennessee-Knoxville. (***)

January 10, 1997 - Gardeners of the Golden Horseshoe

This garden site is principally for those who garden in the golden horseshoe--the southernmost part of Canada next to Lake Ontario--but the site has unique features that provide an inspiration for discussion and information exchange sites. This site features links for places, people, events, a plant/seed/info exchange, some local garden sites, a talk site (an excellent collection of listservs), some useful links, a kids' site and local weather. Site constructed and maintained by Paul Newby. (***1/2)

January 9, 1997 - Amazing Environmental Organization Web Directory

Provided as a public service to the biological community, this list is a remarkable collection of links to about anything that is related to the environment. This database combines the best of Yahoo!'s directory organization with WIN95 looking icons to create a very friendly interface. The site also features an interactive environmental bulletin board and a search engine. This is maintained by 23 volunteers, a Sun Workstation and a T1 line in the basement of a CD & Tape store in Santa Barbara, CA USA. (****)

January 8, 1997 - Endangered Species Home Page

A site of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, these pages feature information about the Endangered Species Act. Links are given to the text of the Act, a periodically-issued bulletin, and detailed lists, database and maps of the currently endangered species of plants and animals in the U.S. The site also has general statistics, information on petition management, the listing process, recovery, Section 7 consultation, habitat Conservation Planning, information for private landowners, a Candidate Notice of Review and a list of species under consideration for inclusion. (***1/2)

January 7, 1997 - Guide to Native British Trees

This site features an introductory guide to the native trees of Britain, with links to Silva--a work being converted from the 1664 text to digital format, commercial & non-commercial tree sites, magazines & publications, and assorted forestry & conservation sites. The guide is the educational heart of the site, with detailed descriptions of 33 species and limited illustrations of some of them (384 x 256 30-60 KB GIFs of good quality). This site was constructed by Bill Unsworth sponsored by U-Sci Ltd. in the UK. (***)

January 6, 1997 - Wildflowers of Alabama

One of the best State-based wildflower pages, this site has lots of photos (thumbnails facilitate selection of the excellent medium format [515 X 400 ~80 KB or so JPEGs] images), an automated (META-command based) slide show, a Wildflower Notes newsletter and a few external links. The newsletter, Wildflower Notes, features a photo and informative comments for 25 popular genera of wildflowers. (Minor detraction: some photos are unlabeled.) Site created and maintained by Caroline R .Dean, Alabama Wildflower Society, coutesy of Auburn University's server. (***1/2)

January 3, 1997 - Dendrology Pages (FNR 225)

These dendrology pages provide information on local trees and shrubs for a course (FNR 225) at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. So far 23 families are listed. Although the information is currently rudimentary (descriptions of leaves, buds, stems and habit), it is useful information. The site refers to the virtual foliage images, but does not link to them. To see images of the featured species, see the UW gopher for dendrology images! (Warning, some of the images are extremely wide bandwidth [over 2000 X 800 pixels - over 200KB JPEG]). There is also a dictionary available. Site maintained by Leilah Thiel, "humble wildlife student." (***)

January 2, 1997 - Fun with Lichens

LichenLand is a fun and serious site for lichens, with both approaches clearly marked. This site is lavish with photos, terminology, and the centerpiece is a sweeping database including most of the lichens of North America. Each species has a high quality photo, 30 characteristics useful in identifying lichens and a list of references. Images are GIFs and JPEGs of modest (10 KB) to large (>80 KB) length and are excellent in color, focus and contrast. The "LichenLand Lite" version is "lite" enough to satisfy Bill Nye; the in-depth site, enough for undergrad and graduate student scrutiny, with a powerful synoptic key. Funded by NSF and constructed by the Northwest Alliance for Computational Science and Engineering, Dept of Computer Science, Oregon State University and Dept of Botany and Plant Pathology, Oregon State University. (****)

Past, past links (by date):

2006: January

2005: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

2003: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

2002: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

2001: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

2000: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

1999: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

1998: January*, February*, March*, April*, May*, June*, July, August, September, October, November, December   (*Leigh's links)

1997: January, February, March, April, May, June, September*, October*, November*, December*    (*Leigh's links)

1996: February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

Or search by: Subject Index

http://www.ou.edu/cas/botany-micro/bot-linx/jan97.shtml