On Aug 26, 2005, at 12:13 AM, Pacific Rim wrote: > So far the most coherent information I have found about the genus > Gethyum is > in Spanish, on the website of Chile's Museo Nacional de Historia > Natural. > At http://www.mnhn.cl/apuntes/botanica/gethyum.htm there is a botanical > description of Gethyum, including a key to distinguish it from the > closely > related genus Solaria. In 2004 the museum had a major show, Flora de > Philippi, marking the centenary of the death of the botanist who named > both > genera and many more plants besides. http://www.mnhn.cl/ For those of you trying to get to the specific pages with keys (all in Spanish) of this excellent site, if you start at the home page: <http://www.mnhn.cl/>, you'll get to a website entitled: Museo Nacional de Historia Natural - CHILE On this page at the bottom click on: BOTANICA. On the next page click on: Fanerógamas On the next page click on: "Los Géneros Endémicos de Monocotiledónes de Chile Continental" This will give you the webpage: Resultados: Los Géneros Endémicos de Monocotiledóneas de Chile Continental This is the list of all the Monocot genuses that are endemic/found only in Chile. Each genus page lists all the species with descriptions, map links showing locations where they are found growing wild, photos of flowers and plants, and a key to the genus. If you enter <http://www.mnhn.cl/apuntes/botanica/Resultados.htm> directly into your browser, you'll get a non-frame version of the list of genuses page. In another area of this website is a set of pages entitled: "La Flora de Chile Mediterráneo y su estado de conservación" (The Flora of Mediterranean Chile and their state of conservation) by Mélica Muñoz Schick and Andrés Moreira Muñoz There are a couple of interesting maps here. One shows the boundaries of the mediterranean climate region within Chile, and which Chilean provinces or regions it covers (with provincial boundaries shown). <http://www.mnhn.cl/Botanica2/_html/figura1.html> Extensión de Chile Mediterráneo (según Amigo y Ramirez 1998) A second shows the 5 standard mediterranean regions in the world, but I believe it leaves out the part of South Australia surrounding Adelaide that is also classically mediterranean. (It also doesn't show the rain shadow area north of Seattle into southwestern British Columbia that is arguably mediterranean as well as the highlands of Maui.) <http://www.mnhn.cl/Botanica2/_html/figura2.html> Zonas de clima mediterraneo en el mundo (según F. di Castri, 1981) Does anyone know Mélica Muñoz Schick and Andrés Moreira Muñoz and can bother them about possible seed sources for many of the Chilean geophytes? (Osmani...??) And is anyone in Argentina making a website like this Chilean one except for Endemic Argentine Monocot genuses? (With descriptions, photos, location maps, and species keys?) And once they finish that could they get together with the authors of the Chilean page and make an additional website for all those species that fall within both Argentina and Chile. (Which the Chile page ignores because they wouldn't be purely endemic to Chile.) And speaking of endemism, it is interesting to note some synonyms for endemic that that some of us (other than Jim McKenney) might not know: native, indigenous, endemic, autochthonous, aboriginal In particular, I didn't know the word autochthonous, but learned about it from its use on the now-defunct Spanish bulb list, where it is apparently more commonly known and used by Spanish speakers than autochthonous is by English speakers. (Except for Jim McKenney and a few others of course...) ;-) --Lee Poulsen Pasadena area, California, USDA Zone 10a