This group of fields describes the physical and environmental
characteristics of the locality in which the plant was collected as opposed to the
characteristics of the plant itself.
TDWG Short name: HABITAT
Description: Description of the habitat of the accession,
including the geology and soil type in which the plant grows, as well as the associated
species of the community from which this accession was collected.
Relevant standards: ITF
Domain/Range/Values: Alphanumeric; free text, any meaningful
habitat descriptions.
Comments: This information is usually provided by the original
collector.
This is an aggregate field, containing information that could be divided
among the following fields. In fact, many herbaria have entries for these segregate fields
in their field note books.
Since there are no universally accepted schemes for the classification
of soils, vegetation, landforms and substrates that modern collectors can be expected to
follow, the information in this field is regarded as free text. Furthermore, to translate
a collector's historical descriptions into modern schemes is prone to error and
misinterpretation.
Institutions with entirely or partially codified habitat data will have
to expand the codes prior to interchange.
Institutions with habitat data (as defined here) stored in discrete
fields must combine these fields prior to interchange if they are to use this field
in the transfer format.
TDWG Short name: GEOLOGY (?)
Description: A description of the topography of the habitat from
which the specimen was collected.
Domain/Range/Values: Alphanumeric; free text.
Comments: Refer Comments under Habitat.
Information in this field includes landform, situation, etc.
Description: The abbreviated aspect or outlook of the site from
which the plant was collected
Domain/Range/Values: Alpha; any valid directional or aspect
abbreviation.
| Values in Field | Meaning |
| N | North |
| S | South |
| E | East |
| W | West |
| also | NE, SE, NW, SW, NNE, ENE, ESE, SSE, NNW, WNW, WSW, SSW. |
| also | Open Used to refer to a plain or ridge crest |
| Closed Used to refer to a valley or ravine |
Comments: Refer Comments under Habitat.
Description: The substrate or parent rock material in the habitat
from which the specimen was collected.
Domain/Range/Values: Alpha; free text.
Comments: Refer Comments under Habitat.
This field should not include descriptions of soil type.
TDWG Short name: SOILS
Description: Description of the surface soil type from which the
specimen was collected.
Domain/Range/Values: Alphanumeric; free text.
Comments: Refer Comments under Habitat.
In many cases it is difficult to separate soil and substrate information
from a habitat description.
TDWG Short name: VEGETATION
Description: Description of the vegetation from which the
specimen was collected.
Domain/Range/Values: Alphanumeric; free text.
Comments: Refer Comments under Habitat.
The contents of this field are sometime inseparable from the contents of
the next field, Associated Species.
Description: A list of associated species found in the same habitat as
the collected specimen.
Domain/Range/Values: Alpha; free text, scientific names (with
standard Capitalisation) or non-scientific names.
Comments: In most herbaria, this field is combined with the
previous field as part of the vegetation description; with historical material it is
sometimes difficult to separate these two fields.
Refer Comments under Habitat and Vegetation.