Wiki Additions and Pelargonium
Mary Sue Ittner (Mon, 23 Aug 2004 15:58:06 PDT)

Dear All,

I'd like to clarify a question about what is appropriate for the wiki since
it seems to be coming up now and again so it must not be understood.

When this list was moved to ibiblio.org we were given the opportunity to
have a wiki, an interactive web site, where we could display pictures of
plants we were discussing. It seemed like a wonderful solution to the
attachment problem. We could disallow attachments and thus save people who
did not have storage space or a fast connection and avoid having viruses
sent to the list. They do come as we list administrators get them (or
rather our virus software gets them), but it is nice to know they aren't
coming to everyone. If people were interested in looking at the pictures
they could and if not they didn't have to.

As long as we were adding pictures it made sense to write about them and
without consciously deciding to do so we have created a resource of
information and photos that I think is rather wonderful. Anyone on this
list can contribute to the wiki. If you have a picture of a geophyte, it
can be added. We only ask you to follow the rules we have set up to keep it
organized. If you look at the wealth of material there you will find what
is most represented comes from people who were willing to take the time to
add pictures and text. It's not a matter of wiki administrators deciding
what should be there.

Those of you who choose to look at the Pelargonium information that David
Victor has added will see that he spent a lot of time working on this page.
His pictures show the leaves (with a ruler) and the flowers. Photographing
both in the same picture is really tricky we found when we saw them in
South Africa. And he has written a lot of really interesting information
about the plants. For people wanting to know more about tuberous
Pelargonium searching the web it will now be there.

We hope Jaime Vande will add to the Paeonia wiki page. If Joe wishes to
create a wiki page to link to the Crinum page with Marcelle Sheppard's
information and his digital images of her plants, of course we would love
him to do it. Our wiki has limitations that a web page does not have, but
it has the advantage that anyone who is willing to learn how to use it and
put the time into it can participate. It is the only resource we have
available for this kind of information. We don't even have a web master for
our pbs web site.

Any of you wanting to create a resource for the geophytes you love are
encouraged to do so.

Mary Sue