Help: Searching Florabase

Search Names

At the top of each page is a search field that provides you with a quick way to find a taxon by its name. With this field you can search by any epithet of the name you're interested in, along with the author, editor, vernacular name and species code fields. Additionally, you may search by the taxon's unique identifier. Any taxon name that matches the words you provide will be returned and you may use the asterisk (*) or percent (%) characters to avoid having to type long name parts.

Advanced Search

For more specific searches where you can specify your query exactly, use Advanced Search . The search criteria are described below.

Drop down boxes

Make your query choice from the available selection.

Textual query

Any single word in a long text field, e.g. the Soil Type field, can be a query term without pattern matching being required, e.g. typing red in this field would retrieve records containing red clay, or red sand.

Entering more than one word, e.g. red loam will retrieve all records containing these terms; e.g. shallow loam over red clay

Mixed queries

These are allowed e.g., to query for all taxa growing around granite outcrops, type granite in the Soil Type field and select outcrops from habitat drop down box.

Case

The text is case insensitive, e.g. typing proteaceae or PrOtEaCeAe in the Family field will both return any records with Proteaceae in the Family field of our database.

Parentheses

Parentheses are not able to be used in formulating queries and are ignored when formulating search criteria.

Multiple words

To find a contiguous string of words for which you want, enter the words with spaces. For example, enter red loam to retrieve all records containing the contiguous terms; e.g. red loam over laterite and red loamy sand, but not shallow loam over red clay or red sandy loam

Using the asterisk

To find all species with the root march, enter march* in the Species field. This will retrieve species names including marchantii and marchantiorum.

If you are unsure of the correct spelling for a textual query, e.g. laterite or lateritic, in the Soil Type field, enter the root followed by an asterisk, e.g. laterit* This will retrieve records for all the taxa with the words laterite or lateritic.

Matching a word by text at its end

To match a word by the text at its end use the asterisk at the beginning of the value, e.g. to find all taxa published in 1811 enter *1811 in the Reference field.

No Matches

If a query returns no matches, try to broaden your search criteria, or use different criteria that might achieve the same end result.

Explanation of the query fields

Family

The plant’s family name.

Genus

The plant’s generic epithet (name).

Species

The plant’s specific epithet (name).

Infraspecies

The plant’s infraspecific epithet (name).

Author

The name of the person who published the plant’s name.

Common Name

The name commonly given to the plant.

Conservation Code

The conservation code of the plant.

Current

Indicates the currently accepted name for the plant as decided by the Western Australian Herbarium. You can choose to display information about names that are current, non-current or both.

Origin

An alien plant is one not native to Western Australia, but may be cultivated or growing in the wild. This field retrieves taxa that are known to be native in their entire range, native in part of their range, or wholly alien.

Informal

In Florabase we track plant names that are yet to be formally published in the scientific literature. In this field you can choose to display taxa with manuscript names (manuscript; names awaiting publication), or phrase names (phrase name; recently recognised segregates), or all informal names (any).

NameId

The unique number given to the plant name by the Western Australian Herbarium.

Reference

The primary literature reference for the publication of the plant name.

Photo

To query for names with associated images (see the photograph primer for more detail).

Flower Colour

The colour of the flower as recorded by the collector.

Flowers In

A range of months in which the plant is known to flower.

Habitat

Sites where the plant is found e.g. dunes, winter-wet areas, disturbed land.

Habit

The growth form of the plant. Note: Currently the dataset only contains growth form data for herbaceous plant taxa.

Soil Type

Including soil type (e.g. sand, clay, loam) soil colour and rock type (e.g. laterite, granite).

Distribution

The following GIS layers are provided in Florabase, and up to 4 can be queried at once using the drop-down boxes provided.

Beard’s Provinces. The phytogeographic regions published in the 1970’s by John S. Beard.
Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia 7 regions .
Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia 7 sub-regions.
Integrated Marine and Coastal Regionalisation of Australia 4.0.
Australian Local Government Areas, 2020.

Choose the name of a layer from the first drop-down box, and then one of the features it contains from the second drop-down box.

In the last drop-down box, choose either “All” or “Any”. Choosing “All” will return taxa known to occur in all of the regions you provided, while choosing “Any” will return taxa known to occur in at least one of the regions you provided.

There is additional help available on our maps.

Collector

The name of the person who collected the specimen(s).

Collector’s Number

The number the collector applied to the specimen.

Sheet Number

The barcode number applied to the specimen by the Western Australian Herbarium.

Locality

The textual location of the specimen provided by the collector.

State

The Australian state in which the specimen was found; TER refers to the Australian territories other than ACT and NT, including the Territory of Ashmore and Cartier Islands, while EA refers to all localities outside Australia.