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of the second objective, namely, to place floristic-taxonomic research on
a modern, computerized, information-system basis.
In a sense, taxonomists, plant or animal, have always been the keepers
of the biological information system. In the plant sciences the floras and
systematic monographs are timed-honored, if non-automated, storage and re-
trieval systems which through the years the plant taxonomist has produced
and revised, as both the means and the ends of his own research, for the
benefit of all who need to know about the kinds of plants in the world.
The hierarchical classification of the organisms, with its binomial nomen-
clature providing unique addresses for parceling and storing information,
has afforded the ideal means of structuring the data file.
Today the taxonomist no longer is able to cope with his historic re-
sponsibilities. Published knowledge has accumulated to the point where it
no longer can be synthesized rapidly and concisely by conventional methods
and media--not even to the extent of keeping the classificatory system
itself up to date, to say nothing of handling new information within this
system. Likewise, botanical collections (herbaria) have grown to the size
where they no longer are comprehensible to the individual scientist, and
thus a great wealth of information often goes untapped for want of suffi-
cient manhours to search and retrieve. Even the seemingly simple task of
supplying the correct name or an accurate description for a native or cul-
tivated species of plant may require hours or even days of valuable pro-
fessional attention, owing to unstandardized terminology, outdated nomen-
clature, or dispersed and unwieldy sources of information. Yet in this
day of molecular biology and ecosystem ecology, when it often is a matter
of national interest to be able to correlate many precise, authoritative
facts about our plant resources in the shortest possible time, biologists,
public leaders, and laymen are depending on the taxonomist more than ever,
though perhaps unwittingly, even while his power to deliver is diminishing
ever faster.
The time is overdue for plant taxonomists to design and implement a
modern information system, using the latest methods of electronic data
processing and communication, so that they can regain their historic control
of the biological data bank. The core of this system must be a dy-
namic, multi-access, taxonomically-structured electronic data bank, designed
for rapid and flexible input, processing, and output. Centralized or
decentralized, it must be accessible to all potential users by means of
the most advanced communications network that is economically feasible.
We propose, therefore, that Flora North America be developed as such a
dynamic, computerized data bank and that it not be developed merely as a
"one-shot," static publication in which, relatively speaking, the state
of knowledge would be rigidly embalmed. Many books and other forms of
output should be possible as more or less automatic by-products of the
data bank, and instant update, revision, and cumulation would be cardinal
attributes of the information system. This is not to deny the initial
and continuing goal of producing a flora of conventional book form, per-
haps in 4-6 volumes, at some stage. For the foreseeable future this seems
