This group of fields covers information about the plant itself,
generally those characters that will not be immediately obvious from the preserved
specimen.
TDWG Short name: NOTES
Description: This field includes descriptive information about
this plant record, including habit, shape and colour of vegetative and reproductive parts
of the plant.
Relevant standards: ITF
Domain/Range/Values: Alphanumeric; free text.
Comments: This information is usually provided by the collector.
As far as possible, this information should be transcribed verbatim from
the herbarium label.
Refer Comments under Locality.
Notes: This is an aggregate field, containing information that
could be divided among the following fields: Habit, Life form, Phenology. In
fact, many herbaria have entries for these segregate fields in their field notebooks.
Note: Information about flower colour is not interchanged as a separate field.
The Comments about encoding data under Habitat also apply
here. Institutions that encode and compartmentalise the information relevant to this field
will need to expand and combine it into this single Collection Note field prior to
interchange, if they wish to include this field in the transfer file.
TDWG Short name: FREQUENCY
Description: A description of the local abundance of the taxon
represented by the record, without any perceived conservation status implied or provided,
as recorded by the collector.
Domain/Range/Values: Alpha; free text.
Comments: Due to the lack of agreed standards for terms covering
abundance, the difficulty of interpreting historical material, and the fact that
statements of abundance are usually embedded in other descriptive text, it seems
preferable to combine abundance into a more general notes field (eg. Collection Notes).
However, since ITF2 maintains this information as distinct from the Collection Notes
field, this information is also included as a distinct field in HISPID3. However, ITF2
includes frequency assessment data in the Conservation Status (Threat) field.
Although the latter field is also available in HISPID3, it is recommended that the current
Frequency field, together with the three Plant Occurrence and Status Scheme
fields are used to transfer information describing frequency and perceived conservation.
status.
TDWG Short name: FREQUENCY
Description: A description of the local abundance, hence
perceived conservation status of the taxon represented by the specimen of this record in
the above habitat, as recorded by the collector.
Relevant standards: ITF
Domain/Range/Values: Alpha; free text.
Comments: Due to the lack of agreed standards for terms covering
abundance, the difficulty of interpreting historical material, and the fact that
statements of abundance are usually embedded in other descriptive text, it seems
preferable to combine abundance into a more general notes field (eg. Collection Notes).
However, since ITF2 maintains this information as distinct from the Collection Notes
field, this field is also included as a distinct field in HISPID3.
Description: This field records whether the plant is a native of
the collection habitat or whether it is a naturalised introduction.
Relevant standards: ITF
Domain/Range/Values: To be decided.
Comments: It is expected that this field will have values similar
to the following:
Values in Field
Natural
Naturalised
Unknown
Guidelines: World Conservation Monitoring Centre in Cambridge
(WCMC) are working on this standard, soon to be in press.
Description: This field records whether the plant occurs as a
cultivated specimen or not, in the collection habitat.
Relevant standards: ITF
Domain/Range/Values: To be decided.
Comments: This field records whether the plant is established or
not established (hence, only maintained as a cultivated plant), in the collection habitat.
It is expected that this field will have values similar to the following:
Values in Field
Cultivated
Not cultivated
Unknown
Guidelines: World Conservation Monitoring Centre in Cambridge
(WCMC) are working on this standard, soon to be in press.
Relevant standards: ITF
Domain/Range/Values: To be decided.
Comments: It is expected that this field will have values similar
to the following:
Values in Field
Human
Non-human
Unknown
Guidelines: World Conservation Monitoring Centre in Cambridge
(WCMC) are working on this standard, soon to be in press.
TDWG Short name: PLTDESCR
Description: A description of the habit or life form of the
specimen on which the record is based.
Domain/Range/Values: Alpha; free text, any valid description of a
plant habit.
Comments: Since there are no universally accepted schemes for the
classification of habit that modern collectors can be expected to follow, the information
in this field is regarded as free text. Furthermore, to interpolate a collector's
historical descriptions into modern schemes is prone to error and misinterpretation.
Description: The phenological state of the specimen represented
by this record.
Domain/Range/Values: Alpha; a value as listed in table below:
Values in Field
HIGHER PLANTS
'FLOWERS' (Pre-fertilisation)
| bisexual flowers |
| buds |
| female cones |
| female flowers |
| flowers |
| male/female cones |
| male cones |
| male flowers |
'FRUITS' (Post-fertilisation)
| fruit |
| fruiting cones |
CRYPTOGAMS
| gametophyte |
| sporophyte |
| spore-bearing bodies |
GENERAL TERMS
| fertile |
| sterile |
| leafless |
Comments: If more than one individual descriptor applicable to
this record, then this information should be transferred in alphabetical order, with each
descriptor separated by a comma and a space (, ) For example: the information for a
flowering, leafless collection would be transferred as:
phe "flowers, leafless",
Description: A single character indication of the presence of
additional data available on the specimen and not represented in this record.
Domain/Range/Values: Alpha; Y or N:
| Values in Field | Meaning |
| N | No additional data present |
| Y | Additional data present |
Comments: The existence on the specimen label of extremely
detailed field notes or botanists' annotations and comments may be flagged in this field.
Description: Any additional information to be transferred
pertaining to the accession, but not catered for in the preceding fields.
Relevant standards: ITF
Domain/Range/Values: Alphanumeric; free text.
TDWG Short name: REPLICATES
Description: Number of replicate specimens represented by this
record or collection.
Domain/Range/Values: Integer.
Comments: A count of the replicate specimens indicated on the
field label, either explicitly or implicitly through the distribution list. This
information is probably not necessary for interchange, especially if the Replicates
Destination field is transferred (see below).
Description: The initial destination(s) of replicate specimens,
using Index Herbariorum codes.
Relevant standards: Index Herbariorum
Domain/Range/Values: Alpha; any valid Index Herbariorum code (in
uppercase), or name written in full if no code available, separated by comma and space.
Comments: The destinations in this field are the initial, not the
ultimate, destination. There is no reliable way of checking if and where donated specimens
may have been redirected.