Type of site | Botanical identification key |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Headquarters | Atherton ,Australia |
| Key people | Frank A. Zich,B.P.M. Hyland, Trevor Whiffin, Raelee A. Kerrigan (Edition 8) |
| URL | https://apps.lucidcentral.org/rainforest/text/intro/index.html |
| Commercial | No |
| Launched | December 2010 (2010-12) |
Australian Tropical Rainforest Plants, also known asRFK, is anidentification key giving details—including images, taxonomy, descriptions, range, habitat, and other information—of almost allspecies offlowering plants (i.e. trees, shrubs, vines, forbs, grasses and sedges, epiphytes, palms and pandans) found intropical rainforests ofAustralia, with the exception of mostorchids which are treated in a separate key calledAustralian Tropical Rainforest Orchids (seeExternal links section). A key forferns is under development.[1][2] RFK is a project initiated by the Australian botanistBernie Hyland.[3]
The information system had its beginnings when Hyland started working for theQueensland Department of Forestry in the 1960s. It was during this time that he was tasked with the creation of an identification system for rainforest trees, but given no direction as to its format.[4] Having little belief insingle-access keys, he began work on creating amulti-access key (orpolyclave) which would eventually become RFK.[4][5] He discussed the project withNeil Harvey from the Department'sBrisbane office and received considerable assistance from him. Harvey was able to take the raw data given him by Hyland and convert it (using aFortran program he wrote himself) into a format that could be used to create a key using the then standard 80-columnpunched cards.[4]
These cards formed the basis of the key and were used in conjunction with a handbook.Edition 1 was published in 1972 and covered just 584taxa, using 48bark characteristics and 45leaf characteristics to make an identification.Edition 2, published in 1983, expanded the number of taxa covered to 799, however this was almost the maximum capacity for the card-based system, and a new technology was required to expand it further.[4][6]
In 1983 Hyland began a collaboration withTrevor Whiffin ofLa Trobe University, whom he had met in 1973, to expand the key even further. As well as planning for a computer version of the key, more species were added to the database as well as flower, fruit and seedling features and x-ray images of the leaves.[6][4] This was a massive undertaking andEdition 3 was not completed until 1992, and released in November 1993[4] It was published onCD-ROMs, covered 1056 taxa, and was available for the public to buy and use on Windows and Mac computers. It is possibly the first computer-based identification key in the world.Edition 4 was published in 2000, followed byEdition 5 in 2003, both CD-roms, bringing the total number of species covered up to 2154.[3][7][8]
In 2002 Bernie Hyland retired from theCSIRO where he then worked, but continued on as aCSIRO Honorary Research Fellow to continue to provide input to the project, which has since been headed byFrank Zich.[6][9][10] The next milestone in its development wasEdition 6 (published 2010), which was transferred to theLucid softwarea platform and released online for the first time, enabling free access to RFK for any interested person. It covered 2553 taxa and used 730 characteristics.Edition 7 added another 200 taxa and was published in 2018.[6]
Edition 8 (published 2020) represents another significant technological step forward, being available as amobile app foriOS andAndroid devices,[1][6] as well as the online version. It now covers 2762 species, uses over 730 features to make identifications, and contains around 14,000 images.[1]