16. "PREPARATION OF IDENTIFICATION KEYS BY COMPUTER FOR 
FLORA NORTH AMERICA M 
L. E. Morse & J.H. Beaman. 
Michigan State University. 
And 
S. G. Shetler. 
Smithsonian Institution, 
Washington, D. C. 
Flora North America » as a manual, will have dichotomous 
keys for identification of all included taxa. As these keys are 
constructed by the individual specialists, the Editorial Commi¬ 
ttee will circulate them to taxonomists in all parts of the -- 
country for testing before adoption in the FIora . Thus the Com¬ 
mittee will find it necessary to revise the keys frequently du¬ 
ring preparation, and an efficient means is needed to accomplish 
this with speed and accuracy. For this purpose the senior author 
has designed a program for computer printing of conventional in¬ 
dented keys from data presented on cards in unnumbered, non-iden 
ted form. By adding, removing, or correcting specific cards, re¬ 
visions can be made in a particular part of the key without affe£ 
ting the rest of the data. The chance for error is greatly redu-~ 
ced, and revised editions can be prepared very rapidly. This - 
program is especially useful for abstracting smaller keys that - 
will cover more restricted geographic areas or taxonomic groups 
than the original key. As a natural outgrowth, another program - 
is being developed that will enable the computer to construct a 
useful artificial key directly from the raw descriptive data on 
the plants. The computer is particularly suited to this task -- 
since it can consider all possibilities and print sample keys - 
in which the most useful characters are employed in the most di¬ 
rect manner. The taxonomist can impose whatever criteria for --- 
judgment he desires. A third application of computers hein? stu¬ 
died involves direct, on-line identificatiob of specimens ?rom - 
a teletype terminal connected to a central computer. Randon 
choice of characters is possible here, allowing the researcher - 
to use the characters that are observable on his particular spe¬ 
cimen. The computer could either print a list of suggested iden¬ 
tifications or request additional data to continue the process. 
17. n THE USE OF DATA PROCESSING METHODS IN THE HERBARIUM 1 * 
J. Soper. 
National Museum of Canada 
Ottawa, Canada. 
This paper describes a system developed in the her¬ 
barium of Vascular Plants (TRT) at the Botany Department, - 
University of Toronto, during the years 1963 - 1967 and now 
being introduced and exparded at the National Herbarium of 
Canada (CAN) in Ottawa. Much of the information has alrea¬ 
dy been published (Soper & Perring, 1967) but changes are 
reparted in some of the procedures and formats previously 
outlined. 
Descriptions are given of the application of data- 
processing techiques to routine operations in a herbarium 
such as the preparation of (a) catalogue records or other 
index entries; (b) tabels for herbarium specimens; (c) 
lists of exchange and loan material; (d) inventaries; (e) 
distribution maps. A discussion is included of some aspects 
of a general computerizad search program being developed - 
for retrieving data from the information system. Ilustra-- 
tions are provided to show the equipment used in the her¬ 
barium and samples of catalogue record forms, herbarium — 
labels, distribution maps and varius outnut lists. 
