Distribution Search Finally Released!

Post by **daiv** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 12:34 am

Ok the link is up on the home page too. But after some tweaks, I officially launched the distribution search today:

http://www.cactiguide.com/region_search/

Daiv

Saguaro123 · Post by **Saguaro123** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 12:41 am

Thats awesome Daiv.

It really makes the guide much cooler and better to identify a plant.

peterb · Post by **peterb** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 2:30 am

holy moly! That's a great feature and must have taken forever. I didn't know Escobaria orcuttii and Escobaria alversonii occur in Arizona...

peterb

Tony · Post by **Tony** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 2:56 am

Awesome Daiv! It just keeps gettin better and better!

Post by **daiv** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 4:14 am

peterb wrote:holy moly! That's a great feature and must have taken forever.

I guess it wasn't quite forever, but I did start on it back at the end of 2005 - not that I worked on it the whole time either.

There were two challenges that put it off for some time. (If anyone is interested?) First was duplicate names. Because I only created one field for locations in the main database, I set up a LIKE search which searches part of the field. This is by far the easier way, but created a problem. For instance, a like search on the term "California" will return not just California matches, but Baja California, Baja California Sur, and Baja California (Cedros Island). There were several other such challenges. The right thing for me to do would be to set up a distribution table and assign each division a unique ID. And then use the ID to run the querries. I will probably do that in the future, but my "hack job" fix at least works the same way to the user.

The far bigger challenge (is anyone even reading this far?

) I haven't addressed yet. The fact that I don't have detailed enough data for many species. Text that reads "Widely distributed throught the South-Western United States" doesn't mean I can automatically include New Mexico or California for example. So further research is required. Additionally, when the literature says "Found in such-and-such Valley", it isn't immediately apparent what political division said valley is located in. I spent lots of time looking up that sort of thing, but even finding the Departements or Divisions of the South American contries is difficult. Because of this, I actually skipped further divisions for the smaller countries like Ecuador and Uruguay, but this is less than ideal as specific locations like the Galapagosare lost under Ecuador for example. So if anyone is cruising the search and you find some specific data I would gladly include it.

I had a lot of fun making the image maps, but it was serious work. On the first map, you can click on Central America and the Caribbean on the map. The Caribbean Map is my favorite. It wasn't immediately apparent which islands were called what either. (Should Trinidad and Tobago be part of the "Lesser Antilles"? one example) And most literature says stuff like "Widespread in the Carribbean" - as a result I don't have any specific listings for "Turks and Caicos" at the moment.

So perhaps getting it completed might take "forever" after all.

peterb wrote:I didn't know Escobaria orcuttii and Escobaria alversonii occur in Arizona...

Well it is entirely possible that there are mistakes! Soooo if you or anyone else see something that doesn't seem right please feel free to challenge it or correct me if you know it isn't right.

peterb · Post by **peterb** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 4:55 am

E. orcuttii does grow in the far southeast corner of AZ in Cochise County, and alversonii way up in the northwest corner. (According to distribution maps in Benson's Cacti of the US and Canada). Whatta ya know?

Anyway Daiv, truly awesome labors, and the fine tuning is good as a collaborative thing anyway.

Do you have Benson's book?

peterb

Post by **daiv** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 5:32 am

I have Benson's Cacti of California. I don't have the other.

Post by **CoronaCactus** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 6:53 am

I can only find 2 books: The Native Cacti of California and The Native Cacti of Arizona...nothing on the US and Canada you mention, Peter...?

Can you maybe list the books by Bensen?

John P Weiser · Post by **John P Weiser** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 7:56 am

Dave
I like this newest addition to an already great sight. What an undertaking.

You have my admiration for the work you do to keep up with all the improvements you have made.

peterb · Post by **peterb** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 2:00 pm

_Cacti of the United States and Canada_ by Lyman Benson, 1982, out of print now with used copies very expensive indeed but usually available from university libraries.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/ ... ition=used

I have been lucky to have Arizona State University's copy out for about 14 months now! I refer to the distribution maps all the time. Some of Benson's taxonomy is idosyncratic and out of date (he chucked all of Echinomastus into Neolloydia, for example, with no explanation...and his treatment of Opuntia is confusing...he renamed Opuntia engelmannii "Opuntia phaeacantha var. discata." He also renamed Echinocereus dasyacanthus "Echinocereus pectinatus var. neomexicanus.") So like everyone in the Cactaceae seems to, he pulled some odd maneuvers. But it's still proven to be an indispensable book for me to understand the geographic ranges of the plants and it helped me find several AZ plants in the wild.

peterb

Post by **daiv** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 4:52 pm

Yikes! That is some serious coin!