Imagine the fact that we could make one of the most complete cactus dictionaries ever!
But this is only a crazy thought, but a pretty cool prospect though?
cactus book
cactus book
recently a thought occered to me. Why not write a huge book on cacti? I mean on this website there must be photos on almost every cactus in the world.
Imagine the fact that we could make one of the most complete cactus dictionaries ever!
But this is only a crazy thought, but a pretty cool prospect though?
Imagine the fact that we could make one of the most complete cactus dictionaries ever!
But this is only a crazy thought, but a pretty cool prospect though?
Buying a cactus a day will keep the madness away.
Re: cactus book
Hey Rob,
Well a couple of things. There are huge books on the subject - such as "The New Cactus Lexicon" and "The Cactus Family" - both are out of print, but lots of people have them. The Cactus Family was first published over 10 years ago and only just went out of print in the past year or so. The NCL was produced in a much smaller run and David Hunt does have a few copies left yet for sale: http://www.newcactuslexicon.org/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; (Possibly a second edition will be done - maybe).
I think in many ways a website is superior to a book. Keep in mind, I'm in the book business so I don't make that statement lightly. Perhaps the biggest strength comes with images.
Of the big works mentioned above, "The Cactus Family" had a smattering of images of a plant in habitat or cultivation. I don't think there is more than one picture for any taxon. The NCL on the other hand set out to get a picture of every species and did not quite make that goal. It also may have perhaps 2 or 3 pictures of a single taxon to illustrate variance. This ambitious project also drove the price up over $200. Yet, take Echinocereus englemanii as an example. The NCL has a single (mislabled) picture of this species. Here on the guide part of this site there are 40 and in the forum, there are many times more. Errors like this are permanent in a printed book, but here on the site they can be fixed on the fly. (and indeed there have been many such fixes!).
On the other hand, this site is still lacking a single image for some 450+ taxa as seen here: http://www.cactiguide.com/php/picmissing_search.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
However, this number does continue to shrink. Just today, I was sent some fantastic habitat pictures of Echinopsis korethroides that I will be adding soon.
I don't quite have the connection that David Hunt and friends had to get the images they got of some of those obscure genera like Weberocereus and Leocereus. Of course the NCL also has a lot few taxa listed (due to lumping).
So hope this all doesn't come across as shooting down your idea, but perhaps some things here that you hadn't thought of...
Daiv
Well a couple of things. There are huge books on the subject - such as "The New Cactus Lexicon" and "The Cactus Family" - both are out of print, but lots of people have them. The Cactus Family was first published over 10 years ago and only just went out of print in the past year or so. The NCL was produced in a much smaller run and David Hunt does have a few copies left yet for sale: http://www.newcactuslexicon.org/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; (Possibly a second edition will be done - maybe).
I think in many ways a website is superior to a book. Keep in mind, I'm in the book business so I don't make that statement lightly. Perhaps the biggest strength comes with images.
Of the big works mentioned above, "The Cactus Family" had a smattering of images of a plant in habitat or cultivation. I don't think there is more than one picture for any taxon. The NCL on the other hand set out to get a picture of every species and did not quite make that goal. It also may have perhaps 2 or 3 pictures of a single taxon to illustrate variance. This ambitious project also drove the price up over $200. Yet, take Echinocereus englemanii as an example. The NCL has a single (mislabled) picture of this species. Here on the guide part of this site there are 40 and in the forum, there are many times more. Errors like this are permanent in a printed book, but here on the site they can be fixed on the fly. (and indeed there have been many such fixes!).
On the other hand, this site is still lacking a single image for some 450+ taxa as seen here: http://www.cactiguide.com/php/picmissing_search.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
However, this number does continue to shrink. Just today, I was sent some fantastic habitat pictures of Echinopsis korethroides that I will be adding soon.
I don't quite have the connection that David Hunt and friends had to get the images they got of some of those obscure genera like Weberocereus and Leocereus. Of course the NCL also has a lot few taxa listed (due to lumping).
So hope this all doesn't come across as shooting down your idea, but perhaps some things here that you hadn't thought of...
Daiv
All Cacti are succulents, but not all succulents are Cacti
Re: cactus book
Well, if you like mesembs and comprehensive, you can start buying the first volume of the mesemb series from Little Sphaeroid Press. That should be a comprehensive, not to say complete, series on these well-loved little succulent group?Robb wrote:recently a thought occered to me. Why not write a huge book on cacti? I mean on this website there must be photos on almost every cactus in the world.
Imagine the fact that we could make one of the most complete cactus dictionaries ever!
But this is only a crazy thought, but a pretty cool prospect though?
Re: cactus book
Just last week, I encountered at least 5 distinct forms of Echinocereus brandegeei on the Baja peninsula. No comprehensive work on cacti could ever address this kind of variation. These forms are not worthy of names or taxonomic recognition, but web publishing does allow for a much better representation of just how wildly variable these plants are. I think the internet will render huge, compendious "exhaustive" treatments by a single author or couple of authors a thing of the past.
The main issue now is wrong info. Not here at CG, this is a very reliable site (even if one disagrees with the taxonomical system used). But in general, an internet search on a particular name can often result in laughably wrong IDs and ridiculously mislabeled images.
peterb
The main issue now is wrong info. Not here at CG, this is a very reliable site (even if one disagrees with the taxonomical system used). But in general, an internet search on a particular name can often result in laughably wrong IDs and ridiculously mislabeled images.
peterb
Zone 9
Re: cactus book
This is a very good point. There have been errors here in the past and I'm certain there are errors right now (mispelling, wrong distribution, wrong picture), but they do get caught and corrected and so the site should get ever more corrected as time goes by.peterb wrote: The main issue now is wrong info. Not here at CG, this is a very reliable site (even if one disagrees with the taxonomical system used). But in general, an internet search on a particular name can often result in laughably wrong IDs and ridiculously mislabeled images.
All Cacti are succulents, but not all succulents are Cacti
Re: cactus book
The advantage of web based articles is they can be kept up to date. The disadvantage of web sites is unless they are regularly archived, or the contents downloaded to your computer or CD they can disappear as quickly as they were created. You only have to notice past threads that have been archived where contributors have not directly uploaded pictures to the site but linked to illustrations on photo hosting sites that have then been pulled.
The advantage of a book is once printed it continues to exist unless destroyed. The disadvantage is it can never be up to date as new species will be being described whilst the manuscript is away to be printed.
More and more things will eventually go online, but eventually if we want to retain them we may have to archive them on our own computers or print them out. I have full sets of the British and American Journals, but I wonder had they been put online if the Web had existed when they started would all the hundreds of issues still be online now? Maybe we will have to download and save the new online journals if we wish to refer to them in future rather than just read them online, since nobody knows if those web sites may not disappear in future. If they had been printed they would have continued to exist.
The "Atlas" volume of the New Cactus Lexicon is a magnificent work and exceeds anything that went before. Unfortunately the text volume lacks a comprehensive synonymy and is along the lines of Backeberg's Kakteen Lexicon rather than Britton and Rose's The Cactaceae, so to me does not do the "Atlas" justice. But as the title "New Cactus Lexicon" indicates David Hunt only tried to produce a modern work like Backeberg's Das Kakteen Lexicon and not his Die Cactaceae, or Britton and Rose's The Cactaceae.
"I mean on this website there must be photos on almost every cactus in the world."
I think you have a very restricted idea of how many species of cactus there are Rob. The New Cactus Lexicon indulges in a lot of lumping and still claims to list 7700 names. I don't know if you can borrow the NCL through your library system (we can often specially order books in the UK, which are then borrowed from universities etc) but I think the "Atlas" volume with 512 pages containing four and often six illustrations per page, usually of certified collected material would be an eye-opener.
The advantage of a book is once printed it continues to exist unless destroyed. The disadvantage is it can never be up to date as new species will be being described whilst the manuscript is away to be printed.
More and more things will eventually go online, but eventually if we want to retain them we may have to archive them on our own computers or print them out. I have full sets of the British and American Journals, but I wonder had they been put online if the Web had existed when they started would all the hundreds of issues still be online now? Maybe we will have to download and save the new online journals if we wish to refer to them in future rather than just read them online, since nobody knows if those web sites may not disappear in future. If they had been printed they would have continued to exist.
The "Atlas" volume of the New Cactus Lexicon is a magnificent work and exceeds anything that went before. Unfortunately the text volume lacks a comprehensive synonymy and is along the lines of Backeberg's Kakteen Lexicon rather than Britton and Rose's The Cactaceae, so to me does not do the "Atlas" justice. But as the title "New Cactus Lexicon" indicates David Hunt only tried to produce a modern work like Backeberg's Das Kakteen Lexicon and not his Die Cactaceae, or Britton and Rose's The Cactaceae.
"I mean on this website there must be photos on almost every cactus in the world."
I think you have a very restricted idea of how many species of cactus there are Rob. The New Cactus Lexicon indulges in a lot of lumping and still claims to list 7700 names. I don't know if you can borrow the NCL through your library system (we can often specially order books in the UK, which are then borrowed from universities etc) but I think the "Atlas" volume with 512 pages containing four and often six illustrations per page, usually of certified collected material would be an eye-opener.
Re: cactus book
I tried to borrow NCL through inter-library loan from my local library on my last trip back to Az and found It carried a $25 shipping fee so I decided to skip it for such a short trip. I may do it on a future trip when i will be able to have it longer. Try in your area--your local library or their website can tell you where a copy is located. In my case it was a university 200 miles away.
I just bought the Cactaceae by Britton and Rose on amazon. It is old and outdated and can be had cheap. The reason I want it is for the original plant descriptions and fotos/drawings. It can also be had free online to download onto your computer.
One good book in Spanish and probably not available in the States, is Cactaceae de Guatemala by Veliz. One of its best features is that he tries to have 4 or 5 fotos of each species, which really helps with the variability in some species of cactus.
Photos are a big cost feature in publishing, even if the publisher goes off shore to cut costs. Shipping is another killer on big volumes. If NCL ever comes out with a second edition, I would hope they offer a DVD edition to cut cost and shipping.
Speaking of DVDs, I`ve just finished looking through my first DVD of past issues of CSJ--for 40 bucks it is a lot of reading and a great resource.
I just bought the Cactaceae by Britton and Rose on amazon. It is old and outdated and can be had cheap. The reason I want it is for the original plant descriptions and fotos/drawings. It can also be had free online to download onto your computer.
One good book in Spanish and probably not available in the States, is Cactaceae de Guatemala by Veliz. One of its best features is that he tries to have 4 or 5 fotos of each species, which really helps with the variability in some species of cactus.
Photos are a big cost feature in publishing, even if the publisher goes off shore to cut costs. Shipping is another killer on big volumes. If NCL ever comes out with a second edition, I would hope they offer a DVD edition to cut cost and shipping.
Speaking of DVDs, I`ve just finished looking through my first DVD of past issues of CSJ--for 40 bucks it is a lot of reading and a great resource.