Diario del proyecto Ericas of Southern Africa

There is a new version 4.00 of the Erica Identification aid, now freely available for windows PCs at https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.10407033.
(More details of the identification aid can be found here)

As well as being updated for recent versions of windows, it includes some new functionality, including for identification, mapping, and linking to iNaturalist and World Flora Online. We have short paper about this in review that you can already read:

Oliver EGH, Forshaw N, Oliver IM, Volk F, Schumann AWS, Dorr LJ, Hoekstra RD, Musker SD, Nürk NM, Pirie M, Rebelo AG (2024) Genus Erica: An Identification Aid Version 4.00. ARPHA Preprints 5: e117930. https://doi.org/10.3897/arphapreprints.e117930 click to read

Photos in the ID aid can be a really useful quick reference, but many of the current ones are low resolution or of herbarium specimens. The challenge is choosing new ones. There are so many photos on iNaturalist, and so many Ericas - but also many knowledgeable folk!
We'd be delighted if you could help by indicating yours - available on a CC license - that you think would be particularly useful.

• On your observation of the Erica, scroll down until you see "Observation Fields" in the right hand panel.
• In the box type in the custom field "Erica ID Aid V4" and click Enter
• This will open another box specific to the field, with the caption "The URL of a specific photo, not just the observation"
• If you know the photo url, then enter it; otherwise merely mention which photo number (3 or second or #5) you wish to suggest and we will enter the url to the photo for you.

It's going to take a group effort to continue to update and improve the ID aid. If you spot any other potential improvements, please do get in touch.

Best wishes,

Nigel Forshaw, Ren Hoekstra, Seth Musker, Mike Pirie & Tony Rebelo

New Species Page of the Erica Identification Aid. Showing characters, distribution, subspecies, references and synonyms.

New Google Earth distribution summary (showing all the Erica plukenetii subspecies and details for a selected locality).