Pinellia, weedy plants, and the wiki
Mary Sue Ittner (Sat, 17 Jul 2004 07:16:26 PDT)

Dear Paul and all,

It's a good point that you and Jim Waddick made in defense of Pinellia that
what is a weedy plant one place may not be a weedy plant some place else. I
remember a number of years ago complaining about some of my weeds and
someone from Arizona wrote me to send my weeds to her as she doubted they'd
be weeds in the desert.

It also seemed a bit strange that after the USDA learned that some species
of Homeria (now Moraea) had become weeds in Australia that they were not
allowing Jim Duggan in California to send any of the species he was selling
out of state. He couldn't send them to places where they couldn't possibly
grow, much less be a weed, but could sell them in California where in some
places they could naturalize.

Although our pbs wiki started out as a place people on our list could post
pictures of plants they were growing to illustrate points they were making
on the list so we could ban attachments and avoid the down load/virus
problems for everybody, it has become much more as it evolved. Each genus
page on the Photographs and Information page provides both when our members
are kind enough to include both. The wiki is easy to edit and improve by
adding more information. I encourage people to do so if they see something
is misspelled, wrongly named, or little information is provided about it
and it is a plant they know and grow and could tell people about. There
doesn't have to be a picture to write about a species even. The picture can
be added later when someone has it to add. If the name is wrong, you should
write me, Jay Yourch, Mark Wilcox, or Mark McDonough so we can rename any
jpg files too, but anyone can change the name in the text. I routinely
monitor the recent changes as I am sure some of the administrators do too
just to make sure there isn't anything added that shouldn't be so don't
worry about making a mistake.

It was good of Jim McKenney to start a page for Pinellia. I have already
edited it adding links to the Photographs And Information page. Paul, you
can edit it too and add a few sentences about your experiences in
Australia. Wikis were created so everyone could participate easily.

Mary Sue