Edition 2, to be published in September 2024, will cover all seed plant families, with fact sheets, 4,040 images, and an illustrated glossary as well as an introduction to fruits and seeds. Characters and character state data for 123 fact sheets, representing all monocot and 44 eudicot families, were pulled from the Family Guide for Fruits and Seeds, when possible, and from the references cited on each family's fact sheet. Nomenclature followed GRIN-Global, which generally follows the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group’s classification (2016) with the exception of Amaranthaceae. Distribution maps from the Angiosperm Phylogeny Website were used, with permission. For the remaining 280 fact sheets, content is from Family Guide for Fruits and Seeds without modification including the nomenclature.
Edition 1 covered 79 monocotyledon families with a key, fact sheets, 898 images, and an illustrated glossary as well as supporting information. Characters and character state data for the key and fact sheets were pulled from Family Guide for Fruits and Seeds, when possible, and from the references cited on each family's fact sheet. Nomenclature followed GRIN-Global, which generally follows the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group’s classification (2016). Distribution maps from the Angiosperm Phylogeny Website were used, with permission.
Version 1.1 was published in April 2021 on delta-intkey.com to provide access to all content of the database including the key. This version was slightly modified to improve useability.
Version 1.0 was created by former ARS scientists, Joseph H. Kirkbride, Jr. and Charles R. Gunn, in collaboration with Michael J. Dallwitz, previously with CSIRO. This online, interactive database using the DELTA system was published in April 2006 on the USDA, ARS, Systematic Botany and Mycology Laboratory (SBML) web site. The database is no longer available on the SBML site.
The 2006 database included 418 families scored for 333 characters and represented by 3,245 images of fruits, seeds, and embryos. The nomenclatural standard adopted was the USDA, ARS Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN) and was last synchronized with this database in December 2003. The 333 characters were distributed amongst the following types: 17 cone characters; 124 fruit characters; 175 seed characters; 3 distribution characters; 4 classification characters; one note character; 2 bibliographic characters; 4 USA noxious weed characters; and 7 meta data characters. More about the procedures for data acquisition can be found here.
Authors: M. Islam, A. Miller, M. Maher, J. Scher, A. Redford
Content last updated November 2022
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