Flora North America as an Information System

Abstract

largely as a conventional floristic work, albeit of continental scope. The role of the computer as envisioned initially was to be quite peripheral. The role of the computer as now envisioned will be central, fundamental, and very farreaching. We are in a computer age. To attempt now to prepare a Flora on the scale of the proposed Flora North America without the integral use of the computer surely would be tantamount to attempting systematic research without the microscope. Gradually, we have evolved an information system concept of Flora North America which will bring about a radical new approach to the organization and communciation of floristic and taxonomic data-an approach based squarely on modern electronic data processing concepts and methods. Numerical taxonomy has brought the computer to the aid of the taxonomist as a tool for statistical computation and correlation and for analyzing group structure and relationships. It remains for a project such as Flora North America to promote the use of the computer in storing and retrieving the mass of information with which the taxonomist