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Cut Flower Exports of Africa was developed and published by the Center
for Plant Health Science and Technology (CPHST) as part of a cooperative
agreement with North Carolina State University, and in collaboration with the
California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA). CPHST is the scientific
support organization for the Plant Protection and Quarantine (PPQ) division
of the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) and is under
the direction of Dr. Gordon Gordh. CPHST National Science Program Leader Daniel
Fieselmann oversaw key development.
Julia Scher, author of Cut Flower Exports of Africa, is based at the Seed Lab in CDFA's Plant Pest Diagnostics Center (PPDC).
Descriptions (Brief characterization and Cultivar and/or species variation categories) in fact sheets, and interactive matrix scoring are based on botanical, horticultural, and other references (listed in References) as well as personal observation of cut flowers obtained from wholesale and retail flower sources.
Some features and states, and some of the explanatory text on feature pages, were drawn from or based on characters and character notes pages in the Australian Biological Resources Study (ABRS) Lucid key Families of Flowering Plants of Australia. The willingness of coauthor Kevin Thiele to share characters and his suggestion to use the key's state drawings are much appreciated.
An extended search was conducted to find the names of flowers exported by individual African countries, in order to determine the taxa to be covered by the key. For the most part, these names were obtained from websites of African country flower councils and export organizations, online and print flower trade publications, and two U.S. government databases: the PPQ Port Information Network (PIN-309) database on Interception Records, and the 280 database of "regulated importations and disposition of fruits, vegetables, cut flowers, propagative materials, logs and lumber". The countries importing each flower taxon are listed in the taxon fact sheets under the heading Countries exporting.
Millie Nishita of Flora Fresh Inc. (wholesale flower dealer) deserves special thanks for permitting the author to purchase flowers for study, and for keeping track of and obtaining particular flowers sought. Millie and the Flora Fresh staff were consistently helpful and informative.
The names of species, hybrids, and cultivars cultivated, as well as some of the information on species and cultivar variation, for over half of the genera in the key, were taken from entries in the book Specialty Cut Flowers. Prof. Allan Armitage (coauthor) kindly allowed use of this information. Forty-three percent of the key taxa were not covered in Specialty Cut Flowers. For these genera, species/cultivar information was obtained from print and online flower seed catalogs, wholesale and retail floral websites, and other sources listed in References.
Arthur O. Tucker (Delaware State University) clarified nomenclature of the plants pictured on the Origanum page.
Many of the photographic images are used with the permission of the copyright owners, who are acknowledged in image captions. Thanks are due to the following photographers, organizations and/or businesses who generously allowed use of their digital images:
Australian National Botanic Gardens (ANBG): A. Lyne, M. Fagg, R. Hotchkiss, S. Hopper, D. Greig, R. Hill, N. Mariott, and M. Crisp
Gerald D. Carr (University of Hawaii)
California Cut Flower Commission
David Fenwick, The African Garden, UK
Liz Fial, California Flora Nursery
Nigel Forshaw
Henriette Kress <http://www.henriettesherbal.com/>
James Manhart
Ken McPheeters, Information Technology and Communication Services (ITCS), University of Illinois
Missouri Botanical PlantFinder
Protea Atlas Project, South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI), Capetown
K.R. Robertson, Illinois Natural History Survey
K. Sahin, Zaden B.V.
South African Protea Producers and Exporters Association (SAPPEX)
Dolf Schumann, SAPPEX
Kurt Stüber
Peter Swart, Plantweb Picture Gallery
George Whiting, Temple University
Werner Wallner, Victoria Adventure
West Harptree Nursery
All photographs not credited in image captions were produced by Julia Scher.
Many thanks to Chris Fernandez, Larry Fowler, Fred Hrusa, and Terrence Walters,
for critical review and beta testing of initial drafts of Cut Flower Exports
of Africa, and to John Iniguez, Marian Stephenson, and Shaun Winterton
for helpful comments.
Fred Hrusa (botanist, PPDC) deserves particular mention for consistently offering advice and expertise in response to frequent questions regarding taxonomic and morphological problems throughout key development. His input was crucial to the advancement of this project.
Marc Epstein and Scott Kinnee (Entomology, PPDC) kindly provided a Nikon D70 camera on extended loan, that was used by the author to take nearly all of the original images in the key.
Original drawings are by Julia Scher. Two botanical illustrations used with permission are: Telopea speciosissima and Banksia serrata, by M. Fagg of ANBG. Many of the feature-state illustrations were taken from the Lucid key Families of Flowering Plants of Australia and were drawn by Ian Telford. These were used with the kind permission of Mr. Telford, Kevin Thiele, and ABRS.
Construction of this key was made possible by the consistent and solid support in terms of the facility, equipment, herbarium, and expertise provided to the author at the PPDC, under the direction of Umesh Kodira. In particular, thanks to the PPDC Seed Lab botanists, Jim Effenberger, Don Joley, Deborah Meyer, Paul Peterson, and Marian Stephenson, for their assistance, support and confidence in the author during this key project.
A special thank you to Matthew Taylor, Dan Campbell, and Damian Barnier of the Centre for Biological Information Technology (CBIT), for their patience with numerous and often urgent questions and requests, and particularly for their consistently helpful and informative answers, during development of this key.
See the Copyright notice for information about use of key content.
For information concerning Cut Flower Exports of Africa and to offer any feedback or comments, please contact Julia Scher:
julia.l.scher@aphis.usda.gov
(916) 262-3181