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BEN # 124



                                                   
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BBBBB    EEEEE    NN N N             BOTANICAL
BB   B   EE       NN  NN             ELECTRONIC
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No. 124                              January 13, 1996

aceska@freenet.victoria.bc.ca        Victoria, B.C.
-----------------------------------------------------------
 Dr. A. Ceska, P.O.Box 8546, Victoria, B.C. Canada V8W 3S2
-----------------------------------------------------------

GENERA OF THE NITROGEN FIXING TREES
From: James Brewbaker <brewbake@hawaii.edu>
         [based on Brewbaker et al. 1990 - see References]

A  summary  table  is  provided of trees and large shrubs (> 3 m
high) that were validated as nodulating, and known  or  presumed
to  fix  nitrogen.  The  summary is derived from NFTA's expanded
database that includes about 1500 taxa.  Only  one  family  that
includes  nodulating plants, the Datiscaceae, does not appear in
this table, as the genus Datisca lacks arboreal or woody forms.

Most of the 115 genera of N-fixing trees and  shrubs  (NFT)  are
legumes.  As  calculated  by  de Faria et. al. (1989) nodulation
characterized 23% of 349 tested caesalpinioid  species,  90%  of
454 tested mimosoids and 97% of the 2592 papilionids.

Nodulation  involves  symbiosis  with  rhizobial bacteria in the
legume and in the genus Parasponia (and possibly other  taxa  in
the  Ulmaceae). All other non-leguminous genera are nodulated by
actinomycetes of the genus Frankia.

            LIST OF GENERA OF NITROGEN FIXING TREES

BETULACEAE: Alnus (38/38)

CASUARINACEAE: Allocasuarina (11/20), Casuarina (8/45),
Gymnostoma (1/2)

CORIARIACEAE: Coriaria (16/16)

ELEAGNACEAE: Elaeagnus (10/45), Hippophae (1/3), Shepherdia
(2/3)

LEGUMINOSAE:
   CAESALPINIOIDEAE [nodulation found in 23% of tested species -
all "positive" genera listed here]: Brownea (1/30), Chamaecrista
(2/250), Colvillea (1/1), Cordeauxia (1/2), Dialium (1/40),
Dicymbe (2/13), Dimorphandra (2/25), Epurea (1/14),
Erythrophleum (2/9), Gossweilerodendron (1/2), Hardwickia (1/1),
Lysidice (1/1), Maniltoa (1/20), Sclerolobium (3/35), Tachigali
(2/24)
   MIMOSOIDEAE [nodulation found in 90% of tested species, only
the larger genera listed]: Acacia (193/1200), Albizia (30/150),
Calliandra (11/200), Inga (14/350), Mimosa (3/400), Newtonia
(1/11), Parapiptadenia (1/3), Paraserianthes (1,5), Prosopis
(15/44), etc.
   PAPILIONOIDEAE: [nodulation found in 97% of tested species,
only the larger genera listed]: Aeshynomene (2/150), Caragana
(4/80), Chamaecytisus (1/30), Clitoria (1/70), Dalbergia
(17/100), Desmodium (including Codariocalyx and Ougeinia)
(4/300), Erythrina (26/108), Indigofera (1/700), Laburnum (4/2-
6), Lonchocarpus (8/150), Robinia (3/4), Sophora (7,50),
Swartzia (8/135), Tephrosia (1/400), Wisteria (4/6), etc.

MYRICACEAE: Comptonia (1/1), Myrica (13/35)

RHAMNACEAE: Ceanothus (14/55)

ROSACEAE: Cercocarpus (4/20), Purshia (1/2)

ULMACEAE: Aphananthe (1/5), Celtis (2/80), Parasponia (3/6),
Trema (2/30)

Note: First number is the number of species validated as  NFT's;
second is number of species in the genus.

References:

Brewbaker,  J.L.,  K.B.  Willers,  &  W. Macklin. 1990. Nitrogen
   fixing trees; Validation and prioritization. "Proceedings  of
   IUFRO  Congress,"  Montreal,  Canada. Publ. by IUFRO, Vienna,
   Vol. 2: 335-349. (Reprinted in Nitrogen Fixing Tree  Research
   Reports 8: 8-16. 1990.)
   
de  Faria,  S.M.,  G.P.  Lewis,  J.I. Sprent, & J.M. Sutherland.
   1989.  Occurrence  of  nodulation  in  the  Leguminosae.  New
   Phytol. 111: 607-619.


CONFERENCE: PEATLANDS FOR PEOPLE IN VANCOUVER B.C.

Where:  George Curtis Law Building, University of British Colum-
   bia, Vancouver, B.C.
When: January 26-28, 1996

The conference "Peatlands for people" is organized by the  Burns
Bog  Conservation  Society.  Its goal is "to explore and advance
multi-stakeholder  actions  for  achieving   sustainability   of
world's disappearing peatlands."

The  speakers  will  include Jim Pojar (rare aquatic and wetland
plants), Allen Banner (peatlands in British  Columbia),  Richard
Hebda (discussion on Burns Bog), Martin Gabauer (Sandhill Cranes
in  Burns  Bog),  Anne  Brown (methane production in peatlands),
Ralph May (use of peatlands for cranberry farming),  Tony  Cable
(peatlands  and  peat  extraction),  Alison  Gail (eco-sites and
tourism within metropolitan communities). The well known English
botanist, writer and TV personality Dr. David  Bellamy  was  in-
vited as a keynote speaker (Celebration of mires/peatlands).

For more information contact
Burns Bog Conservation Society
Phone: 604-572-0373, FAX: 604-572-0374


VICTORIA, B.C.: BOTANY NIGHT & NATIVE PLANT GROUP

Tuesday,  January 16, 1996: Botany Night - Del Meidinger "Forest
   Ecologist in SE Asia" - Swan Lake Nature House, 7:30 p.m.

Thursday, January 18, 1996: Native Plant Group of  the  Victoria
   Horticulture  Society  - Adolf Ceska "Rare plants of southern
   Vancouver Island and their protection" - University  of  Vic-
   toria, Clearihue Building, Room A 215, 7:00 p.m.


THE EUROPEAN MAGAZINE LOOKS AT CRAWLING THROUGH CYBERSPACE
From: The European MagAZine No. 279 (14-20 Sept. 1995) p.6,7.

The  Internet  grew  up  in  such an unregulated way that no one
really knows exactly how much is really out there in cyberspace.
As any net user will tell you, trying to find what you want  can
be  difficult  and  time-consuming.  There  is  no comprehensive
Internet telephone book that allows you to  look  up  someones's
net address (URL).

So  what can the baffled netsurfer do? If you want to find a web
page related to your favourite group etc., you  crawl.  Crawling
the  web  in  search  of  URLs Usenet or newsgroups is a serious
business. A search engine is the name given to the programs  and
Internet  resources  dedicated to crawling. Some are commercial,
others are free.

http://fuzine.mt.cs.cmu.edu/
   Lycos - the king of the online search engines.  This  massive
   database,  maintained  by  Carnegie Mellon University, is the
   first place you should go to on your web search.

http://akebono.stanford.edu/yahoo
   Yahoo web crawler has the only disadvantage that it is biased
   towards US sites. European web sites often fail to get recog-
   nized or fail to post their URL.

http://harvest.cs.coloradu.edu/
   Harvest  contains  more  than  25,000  3w  sites  with  fewer
   duplications than Lycos.

http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/Data Sources/WWW/Servers.html
http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/Data Sources/bySubject/Overview.html
   These are one of the most essential and powerful search tools
   on the net.

http://cui_www.unige.ch/w3catalog
   CUI   index   is   mainatined  by  the  Centre  Universitaire
   d'Informatique in Geneva. It is a  well  maintained  database
   which  allows  you  to  search  existing  web  catalogues and
   produce detailed summaries and links. It  has  around  13,000
   entries so you should have no trouble getting what you need.


PLANTS DATABASE FOR WASHINGTON STATE AND OTHER STATES OF THE USA
From: "John A. DeLapp" <jdelapp@halcyon.com>
  originally posted on <pacific-biosnet@listproc.wsu.edu>

For  those  folks with Web access the PLANTS database allows the
downloading of a list of Washington state plants from  the  fol-
lowing URL:

http://trident.ftc.nrcs.usda.gov/plants/staselec.html

The data file can be imported into any spreadsheet, database, or
word processor. (If you are lucky enough to use a Macintosh, you
can  use  the  shareware macro program TypeIt4Me to allow you to
type the abbreviation (symbol) of the  name  and  have  the  Mac
enter the full name automatically within any program.)

The text of the web page follows:

PLANTS State Data Download Screen

Information:

The  reports  contain  the  symbol,  scientific  name,  accepted
name/common name, and family. The data is in ascii  text  format
with  fields  enclosed in double quotes and delimited by commas.
The files are not compressed.

Data:

Alabama       Kansas         New Mexico       Virginia
Alaska        Kentucky       New York         Washington
Arkansas      Louisiana      North Carolina   West Virginia
Arizona       Maine          North Dakota     Wisconsin
California    Maryland       Ohio             Wyoming
Colorado      Massachusetts  Oklahoma         American Samoa
Connecticut   Michigan       Oregon           Guam
Delaware      Minnesota      Pennsylvania     Palau
Florida       Mississippi    Rhode Island     Puerto Rico
Georgia       Missouri       South Carolina   US Minor Outlying
Hawaii        Montana        South Dakota          Islands
Idaho         Nebraska       Tennessee        Virgin Islands
Illinois      Nevada         Texas            Fed. S. Micronesia
Indiana       New Hampshire  Utah             Marshall Islands
Iowa          New Jersey     Vermont          N Mariana Islands

Copyright Information:

The data found in PLANTS for the plants known  to  occur  within
North  America  were  provided  under a cooperative agreement by
John Kartesz and his staff at the Biota of North America Program
(BONAP). Portions of these data are copyrighted (@ 1994) by John
Kartesz, Biota of North America Program.  The  copyright  notice
must be preserved on all copies. Cooperator derived data that is
altered  by  the user cannot redistribute it as PLANTS data. All
users of PLANTS data are to acknowledge the  contributions  made
by  USDA,  Soil  Conservation Service and BONAP. When using this
information, you must use the copyright notice.


AMERICAN SOCIETY OF PLANT TAXONOMISTS (ASPT) NEWSLETTER ONLINE

Beginning in January 1996, the ASPT Newsletter will no longer be
distributed as hard copy. It will be posted quarterly on a World
Wide Web (WWW) Server maintained by the  NMNH,  Smithsonian  In-
stitution. The following URL will bring you directly to the ASPT
Web Page and Newsletter <http://www.nmnh.si.edu/aspt/>.

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