The Utah Native Plant Society is pleased to be able to offer products produced by Flora ID which includes Interactive Plant Keys and Color Photos for Utah and Interactive Plant Keys and Color Photos for the Great Basin.

The products produced by Flora ID are designed to provide a fast and easy, comprehensive plant key, with easy access to color photos of virtually every plant. They include all species of naturalized vascular plants know to grow in the state, whether native or introduced. Help screens provide illustrated definitions of terms, and there is an on-screen User's Guide, a Tutorial, and a Quick Reference Guide.

Plants are identified by selecting from menus those characteristics which describe the plant. These menus are displayed in a tree outline diagram (like in Windows Explorer), making them easy to find. The characteristics may be selected in any order, and with each selection the list of possible species is reduced according to the combination of characteristics which have been selected. At any time in the process, the program may be asked to provide a list of the easiest and most effective attribute menus to separate the remaining possible species. For flowering plants, for example, there are over 85 menus of characteristics to choose from for all plants, and many more for complex families such as the Asteraceae. The user never needs to mark a characteristic they are not sure of. With just a little practice, it takes about two or three minutes to identify the species of a completely unknown plant, usually with only about four to seven characteristics. Even plant specimens with no fruit nor flowers can be identified. At any point in the keying process, the user can scroll through the photos of the remaining species.

The program can also be used as a reference for information on a particular family, genus, or species. The list of species for the state can be scrolled by scientific or by common name. Highlighting a species will call up a wealth of information, including descriptive information, photos, a list of reference books with page numbers for the species, synonyms of scientific names, data on possible characteristics for that species, and a listing of unique characteristics for that species compared to others; all this information can also be printed out. Marking characteristics in the menus can also be used to pare down the species list; marking "Aquatic", and "SW Utah", for example, would allow printing out a list of SW Utah aquatic plants.

A single key is available for the Great Basin which includes all of Nevada and Utah, plus the Great Basin portions of eastern California, southeastern Oregon, and southern Idaho. Or a key for just Utah can be purchased.

The publisher will provide a 30-day return/money back guarantee (less shipping costs). The licensing agreement also provides for a 90-day return period in the event of any media defects.

Updates: Users are encouraged to check for updates as often as once per year. since the information is updated continuously (added species, new images, name changes, added information, corrections, etc. as information is received.) Updates are provided free on request from the publisher for shipping/handling (currently US$10). Details are provided with the shipped product.

Hardware/software requirements: 1.6 gigabytes of free hard drive space recommended for the installation which will handle even the regional versions, Windows 98 or higher, DVD player or thumb drive.

UNPS has provided Flora ID electronic flora products (including the Utah key) since January of 2004 both to its members and to the general public. A number of our past and current board members have used these keys and enthusiastically recommend them for a variety of uses.