Re: [Aroid-l] What happened to CATE-Araceae site?

From: Simon Mayo <S.Mayo at kew.org> on 2020.02.25 at 14:11:56(24323) Dear All As Anna Haigh has already informed, the Cate Araceae site is up and running at http://araceae-e--monocot-org.scratchpads.eu/ It is indeed unfortunate that the illustrated keys to Philodendron, Anthurium and all African aroid species, which were developed by Anna Haigh and her team and Marcela Mora, are no longer available on the site. Some years ago we gave a copy of the Anthurium key to Tom and he has greatly expanded it as he mentioned in his recent email. Keeping these institutional taxonomic websites going is not an easy matter, and inevitably administrative and personnel changes can have severe impacts, as in this case. Unfortunately the key decisions for long term maintenance, being institutional, are not in the hands of the taxonomists, particularly Anna, who leads the project, who have dedicated years of effort to creating the content. However, it is not true that Kew has stopped supporting CATE Araceae, as it still forms part of Anna’s and my own activities at Kew. Greg is right to have been disappointed at the sudden changes to CATE that have happened. His contributions have been enormous and we are extremely grateful for them. CATE is has always been open to aroid contributors, and as long as it is kept online we shall try our best to maintain and develop it. Best wishes Simon Mayo HTML +More From: aroid-l-bounces@www.gizmoworks.com On Behalf Of Tom Croat Sent: 10 February 2020 04:08 To: Discussion of aroids Subject: Re: [Aroid-l] What happened to CATE-Araceae site? Dear Nils: You are certainly correct about this key being made available. Certainly this is my intention and I will probably put it up at least on the MO website if we can figure out how to make it happen and workable. I would like to have it on the IAS website as well because it will attract more attention from avid aroid growers. It will also have free standing descriptions and images of all the species. Do you need anything special to be able to send me seed. I would just put the seeds into a small padded envelope and mark it scientific materials-no commercial value. It is not likely to be intercepted. Actually clean seed from cultivated sources is perfectly legal but if you did so indicate they actually might go for inspection and they are so inefficient that the seeds would die before they would be sent to me. So it would be better not to mark them as seeds. Tom From: aroid-l-bounces@www.gizmoworks.com On Behalf Of Nils Weessies Sent: Sunday, February 9, 2020 2:24 PM To: Discussion of aroids Subject: Re: [Aroid-l] What happened to CATE-Araceae site? Dear Tom, Thank you for your answer, I hope the key will one day be open-source, to make it easier for people like me to identify or describe species. I still have the Anthurium seeds for you, please email me so I can send them to you. They seem to germinate easily but not all berries are fertile. The mucus around the seed seems to extra sticky when comparing to other Anthuriums. Kind regards, Nils Op zo 9 feb. 2020 19:17 schreef Tom Croat : Dear Nils: I can answer this question. When Kew stopped supporting the CATE site originally, specifically the Lucid Keys, I adopted the keys and have been adding species to those keys for many years so that for example we have added about a thousand species to the Anthurium key. So the existing CATE key would no longer be reliable at all. The problem is that most of the species are not yet published so the key has not yet been published. Tom From: aroid-l-bounces@www.gizmoworks.com On Behalf Of Nils Weessies Sent: Thursday, February 6, 2020 6:02 AM To: Discussion of aroids Subject: Re: [Aroid-l] What happened to CATE-Araceae site? Dear Anna, Are the Lucid keys accessible online in any way? Many of the new world aroids here in botanical gardens in thd Netherlands are mis- or unlabeled. Kind regards, Nils Op do 6 feb. 2020 12:50 schreef Anna Haigh : Dear Sid and all, This site has recently gone down, and we are just looking into what the problem is. In the meantime, you can access it here: http://araceae-e--monocot-org.scratchpads.eu/ Unfortunately the eMonocot site which held the keys went a few years ago, some of the data from that site (minus the keys and some other stuff) is now on http://powo.science.kew.org/ But the site you first mention has a much richer data and we hope to keep it going in some form. I hope this helps, and it is always good to hear that it is still used. It helps the case to keep it going, so many thanks! All the best, Anna On Thu, Feb 6, 2020 at 4:47 AM Greg Ruckert wrote: As one of the data inputers, problems started arising when the UK Govt reduced funding to Kew. I stopped working at that point and do not know what has happened since. A lot of hours went into the project. Greg On 6/02/2020 2:19 pm, Tom Croat wrote: Dear Sid: The CATE site was completely abandoned by KEW and I am uncertain why. I think that it may have been closed for security reasons but I have also heard that it was a difficult site to maintain. I remember Anna Haigh telling me that they were intending to come up with another format and she gave a talk about this in the Monocots Conference in New York. For me the greatest loss was that the CATE site was also where they housed the Lucid keys to both Anthurium and Philodendron. I hope eventually to be able to come up with a similar interactive website, either through MO or the IAS website to make those keys, and others that I have developed, available to the public. Tom From: aroid-l-bounces@www.gizmoworks.com On Behalf Of Siddharth Naveenachandran Sent: Wednesday, February 5, 2020 2:38 PM To: aroid-l@gizmoworks.com Subject: [Aroid-l] What happened to CATE-Araceae site? Hi All, Does anyone know what happened to the http://araceae.e-monocot.org/ site? It was my go to site for botanical descriptions and references. I mailed their helpdesk at enquiries@emonocot.org and it bounced back. For those of you not aware of this site you can refer to this reference on it: http://www.aroid.org/aroideana/getarticle.php?key=MDM4NzEwNg==D -- Cheers Sid _______________________________________________ Aroid-L mailing list Aroid-L@www.gizmoworks.com http://www.gizmoworks.com/mailman/listinfo/aroid-l _______________________________________________ Aroid-L mailing list Aroid-L@www.gizmoworks.com http://www.gizmoworks.com/mailman/listinfo/aroid-l _______________________________________________ Aroid-L mailing list Aroid-L@www.gizmoworks.com http://www.gizmoworks.com/mailman/listinfo/aroid-l _______________________________________________ Aroid-L mailing list Aroid-L@www.gizmoworks.com http://www.gizmoworks.com/mailman/listinfo/aroid-l Disclaimer The information contained in this communication from the sender is confidential. It is intended solely for use by the recipient and others authorized to receive it. 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