Kaszab Zoltán (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 66. (Budapest 1974)

Szujkó-Lacza, J.: Possibilities and problems of the electronic data process of flowering plant herbarium specimens

SOPER & PERRLNG (1967) and others for a complete treatment, independently from the fact whether collection is made for taxonomical, floristical or some other purposes (the EDP praxis considers the possibilities of error with regard to all three information sources). In the following only herbarium offered possibilities of information will be discussed, by surveying first special fields that have already established with more or less certainty which of the data are informative for their respective purposes, i.e. indispensable for the solution of their respective problems. After this reflections will be presented that consider the utilizability of the herbarium in the selection of the minimum requested basic data not only from the view-point of taxonomy and geobotany but also from those of ecology and related fields. In the description of the basic data of the type species (this also applies to the cataloging of the type specimens available in a museum) taxonomy lays claim — though with a demand by far not uniform — to the following: photocopy or film of herbarium specimens, indication of the type category, author of the species, name of collector, locus classicus, data on altitude and latitude, time of collection, literary data including also papers on the chromosome number of the species, in which the taxon is described, name of institution where the specimen is to be found. According to DALLA TORRE & HARMS (1900—1907) additional data as special herbarium number (catalogue number of the collection), letter, or other sign are also essential in the case of genus. 12—-15 basic data are desirable. In their collection the 1. and the 2. source of information is considered. For characterizing the Gaucalidae tribe of the Umbelliferae family MCNEILL, PARKER & HEYWOOD* (1969) introduced 88 plant morphological characteristics on the card registering basic data. In the design of the cards containing the minimum necessary and maximum requested information GOMEZ-POMPA & NEVLLNG (1. c.) asserted the view-points of territorial flora synthesis in the composition of data. The flora of the Antarctic is composed of species which are partly unknown taxonomically. In spite of that, however, it has been possible to catalogue (GREENE 1972) the herbarium of the English Antarctic Observation Station by means of one of the EDP methods and on the basis of 13 basic data. The list and the hierarchic order of succession of basic data — in which family and genus names are independent categories — has been composed by MEADOW (1973) with due consideration of the aspects of taxonomy, floristics as well as those of cataloging and filing. The data cards of specimens concentrate on herbarium and literary sources. It is a matter of contestation in the above papers as to wich is more efficient to collect data from one or more aspects. There is a tendency in the special fields to consider only one aspect, namely that of the respective discipline in the composition of data, while the electronic data process units prefer to consider more aspects for purposes of further and wide-scale utilization. There are only few indications in the literature on the need to use also informations yielded by herbarium sheets in the field of production biology, development- and growth analysis, quantitative ecology, synphenology, synbotany and other disciplines using more complex ways in the approach of a problem. References from which results are also connec* According to author's examinations, however, the architecture of species belonging to the Umbelliferae family has not been satisfactorily considered yet, in spite of the great volume of basic data. This is manifest partly int the sequence of data and partly in the absence of certain essential characteristics. Nearly the same amount of morphological characteristics have been considered by GIVEN (1969) in the treatment of Celmisia, an intergeneric category.