J. L. HUDSON, SEEDSMAN, BOX 337, LA HONDA, CALIFORNIA 94020-0337 USA
LINKS
Please forward links to your favorite information-rich sites.
I don't link to junk!
NEW = New Listing this year.
For links to seed and plant sources see Other
Sources.
Seed Germination Information
Conservation of Biological Diversity
Floras
Libraries
Databases
Medicinal Plants Information
Plant Uses
Digital Privacy and Security
Miscellaneous Useful Sites
Botanical Link Sites
Seed Germination Information:
Handbook of Seed Technology for Genebanks - Volume II. Compendium of Specific
Germination Information and Test Recommendations.
https://www.bioversityinternational.org/fileadmin/_migrated/uploads/tx_news/Handbook_of_seed_technology_for_genebanks_52.pdf
Or:
https://www.bioversityinternational.org/e-library/publications/detail/handbook-of-seed-technology-for-genebanks-1/
This is the single most detailed book on seed germination that I know of.
"Suggested purity and/or germination testing methods for species without
AOSA Rules testing procedures" may be found in both .pdf and word.doc
form at:
http://www.aosaseed.com/reference.htm
Ontario Rock Garden and Hardy Plant Society Germination database:
http://www.onrockgarden.com/
Thompson and Morgan Seed Guide.
http://www.backyardgardener.com/tm.html
This is an internet reprint of the old T&M seed-starting guide.
Tom Clothier's Germination Databases.
http://tomclothier.hort.net
Conservation
of Biological Diversity:
The No White List Coalition.
www.geocities.com/nowhitelist (NOTE: This website has
been taken down)
Important! Read this site! Learn about the impending banning of the possession
and distribution of 99% of living species by the U.S. government in collusion
with the herbicide industry. These regulations are already being phased in. Yes,
it's real, and coming soon. It is already in place in New Zealand, where it
costs NZ$30,000.00 (currently about US$23,600.00) to get permission to import a
single species! Read about it in the New
Zealand Herald.
Cactus Conservation Institute.
www.cactusconservation.org
Dedicated to the preservation of cacti, particularly Astrophytum asterias
and Lopho phora in Texas.
Botanic Gardens Conservation International.
www.bgci.org.uk/
Floras:
Flora of North America.
www.fna.org
Flora of China.
http://flora.huh.harvard.edu/china
Floras Online.
www.efloras.org
Flora of Bulgaria.
http://www.bgflora.net/
Flora of Zimbabwe: 3000 plants with pictures.
http://zimbabweflora.co.zw/
GrassBase - The Online World Grass Flora.
http://www.kew.org/data/grasses-syn/index.htm
Kew's giant database of all the grasses in the world! Has descriptions, keys,
the works!
Libraries:
Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries.
www2.ville.montreal.qc.ca/jardin/cbhl/cbhl.htm
National Agricultural Library.
www.nal.usda.gov/
Look stuff up!
Project Gutenberg
www.gutenberg.org
Free books online!
Databases:
Bibliography of References Related to Seed Dormancy and/or
Germination in Higher Plants.
http://library.usask.ca/dbs/seed.php
A database of 12,000 items, complied by Prof. G.M. Simpson. Amazing!
Vascular Plant Image Library.
http://repository.tamu.edu/handle/1969.1/97046
I know you hate me because I don't have enough pictures on my website! Check
here for more plant pictures than you ever imagined.
California Flora Database.
www.calflora.org/
Information on California plants.
Missouri Botanical Garden W3Tropicos Database.
http://www.tropicos.org
Even though the Missouri Botanical Gardens is severely compromised by
funding from Monsanto, there are still many people there doing important work.
But whatever you do, don't believe a word that MBG director Peter Raven says
about genetic engineering - in this respect, he has been described as "a
paid traveling salesman for Monsanto" and a "wolf in sheep's
clothing", and he is spreading disinformation on genetically-engineered
crops by carefully avoiding or dismissing the many serious issues surrounding
them. He has gone so far as to accuse those who oppose the unrestricted and
unregulated spread of genetically-engineered plants as spreading "economically-motivated
disinformation", and that they are guilty of "a serious crime
against humanity." Yes, Peter, I agree—those who spread
"economically-motivated disinformation" are guilty of "a
serious crime against humanity" - particularly those who do so in the
service of Monsanto. Time to have a heart-to-heart conversation with the man in
the mirror, Peter!
For more information, go to:
Article - "PETER AND THE WOLF: Why Missouri Botanical Garden's Peter Raven,
world-renowned environmentalist, courts Monsanto's favor, boosts its biotech and
takes its money": http://www.rftstl.com/issues/1999-11-03/news/feature_print.html
Raven debating GMOs: http://pewagbiotech.org/events/0204/transcript.php
A speech by Raven to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in Rome:
http://www.agbioworld.org/biotech-info/religion/peter-raven.html
- an emotional, inflammatory, obscene, and completely over-the-top rant by
Raven.
Federal and State Noxious Weeds Database. www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/npgs/html/taxweed.pl
Check here to find out what is illegal in your area. Ever wonder why you
can't grow the valuable medicinal plant St. John's Wort in California? Why you
can't grow arugula in Washington? Or why you will be fined $100 for possessing
watercress in Connecticut?
World Diversity Database.
http://wbd.etibioinformatics.nl/bis/index.php
A continuously growing taxonomic database that aims to document all
presently known species (about 1.7 million).
World Taxonomist Database.
www.eti.uva.nl/tools/wtd.php
Who is working on what.
Listing of Useful Plants of the World. www.newcrops.uq.edu.au/listing/listingindex.htm
Over 4200 species. Extensive bibliographies for some, others with very
little info.
National Plants Database.
http://plants.usda.gov/
Huge database of information and images of plants in the US and territories.
World Seed Laws Database.
http://apps3.fao.org/wiews/legals_query.htm
You don't want to know!
International Plant Names Index.
www.ipni.org/index.html
Find information on who named a species and where the original species
description was published.
Medicinal Plants Information:
The Hungarian Ayurveda Medical Foundation:
"AYURVEDA does not belong to any religion. AYURVEDA is the world
heritage of the mankind, the Science of Life 5000 years old medical system of
India."
http://www.ayurveda.hu/
The Ayurvedic Pharmacopea of India:
"Browse 3000+ digitized pages of the Ayurvedic Pharmacopea of
India."
Part 1:
http://www.ayurveda.hu/api.html
Part 1, Vol. 2:
http://www.ayurveda.hu/api/API-Vol-2.pdf
Herbal Materia Medica.
www.swsbm.com/ManualsMM/MatMed5.txt
Still my favorite site on the entire internet, if only because it is plain
text - no BS. Lots of information on medicinal plants.
More manuals from Moore.
www.swsbm.com/ManualsMM/MansMM.html
Medicinal plant information.
PubMed Central.
http://pubmedcentral.nih.gov
PubMed Central is the U.S. National Institutes of Health free digital
archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature. A free archive of
life sciences journal articles. You can find lots of research on medicinal
plants here. Help files on the use of PubMed can be found at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK3826/
Journal of Ethnopharmacology. www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/03788741
Medicinal plant information - search the abstracts, and learn the results of
cutting-edge science into the pharmacology of plants.
Journals in Pharmacognosy and Natural Products Chemistry. www.pharmacognosy.us/pharmacognosy-and-natural-products-journals
Find more journals on plant chemistry and pharmacology.
Plant Uses:
The Society for Ethnobotany (formerly the Society for Economic
Botany).
www.econbot.org/
A great society for those interested in the uses of plants by man. High
quality journal. Join! Very egalitarian and friendly - the place to go to rub
shoulders with great ethnobotanists. I've been a member since, what? 1974? Been
reading the Journal since high school.
Jim Duke's Ethnobotanical Database.
http://www.ars-grin.gov/duke/
Ethnobotanical Leaflets International Web Journal.
http://www.ethnoleaflets.com
Great peer-reviewed science free on the web!
The Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge
http://www.niscair.res.in/sciencecommunication/ResearchJournals/rejour/ijtk/ijtk0.asp
Publishes original research papers, review articles, and short communications
concerned with the observation and experimental investigation of the biological
activities of the materials from plants, animals and minerals, used in the
traditional health-care systems such as Ayurveda, Siddha, Yoga, Unani,
Naturopathy, Homoeopathy, and Folk-remedies. Free peer-reviewed science on the
web! Great stuff!
Digital Privacy and Security
This section is a work-in-progress, and I'll be adding things as I learn about
this subject myself. Your comments and suggestions are appreciated!
Q: "What do you have to hide?"
A: "None of your business!"
So, if you aren't doing anything wrong, why do you need encryption? Well,
everyone does! You don't have anything illegal in your home, but you still have
a lock on your front door, and no one thinks you are doing something nefarious
because you lock your door, or draw the curtains now and then for privacy. You
have all sorts of perfectly legal and innocent things you may want to hide -
that list of holiday gifts, for example, or those plans for a surprise birthday
party for your spouse. And then there are those things you really should
hide - your new business plan, business trade secrets, your medical records, and
your bank account numbers, financial, and tax records (which have that
all-important Social Security number so loved by identity thieves!). Your
computer is a very vulnerable thing, especially whenever you are on-line.
Protect yourself! You wouldn't go online without an anti-virus program, and you
shouldn't own a computer unless you have good encryption programs. In this day
and age of rampant identity-theft and other cyber criminals preying on the
innocent, you need to become security-conscious.
PGP/GPG
Very serious free encryption program for single files and e-mails. Use
this and you can e-mail securely. Need to e-mail your credit card number to
someone? Use PGP/GPG! Use it for all private communications. Also useful for
people living under totalitarian governments.
http://gnupg.org/ Home site
http://gpg4win.org/ for
Windows
http://gpg4win.org/download.html
for Windows
https://gpgtools.org/ for
Mac
http://futureboy.us/pgp.html
- Good PGP tutorial, has lots of command-line stuff that most of us won't need,
but scroll through it for gems like his "Good Encryption Practices",
and "Why Public-Key Encryption is Cool", and how to hide encrypted
files in photos or music files.
Here is my GPG public key you can
use to send me e-mails or files that only I can decrypt. As Alan Eliasen says
"Pretend we're interesting and send me encrypted e-mail."!
TrueCrypt
https://truecrypt.ch
Serious, free intelligence-agency, military-grade disk encryption,
approved by the US National Security Agency as "sufficient to protect
classified information up to the Top Secret level". Choose from AES
(Advanced Encryption Standard), Twofish, Serpent, and combinations of these.
Unencrypts only into RAM, so it isn't stored elsewhere on your hard disk. Can
create hidden partitions that have "plausible deniability". Useful for
sensitive personal and business records, as well as for people living under
totalitarian governments.
UPDATE: Recently (May 14th, 2014) the anonymous developers of TrueCrypt took
down the download site, claiming TrueCrypt is no longer secure, and only allow
downloading a crippled version that will decrypt only, advising users to migrate
to Bitlocker, a Microsoft program. There has been much speculation on this
(demands from the NSA, etc.), but an independent audit of the program (not yet
completed) has found no vulnerabilities or back-doors, and many recent cases
have shown law enforcement (including the FBI taking 12 months on one file!)
were unable to decrypt TrueCrypt files - search on "TrueCrypt legal
cases". You can still download it from Switzerland at truecrypt.ch.
Digital Privacy Laws.
http://www.backgroundcheck.org/the-legislation-of-privacy-new-laws-that-will-change-your-life/
DNA Privacy - How Secure is your DNA?
http://www.backgroundcheck.org/how-secure-is-your-dna/
Interesting information on DNA privacy, laws, and protecting yourself. Other
interesting information on privacy, background checks, cyber-security, etc.
Electronic Frontier Foundation.
www.eff.org
Good information on protecting your digital privacy. One of the best!
EraserDrop
http://portableapps.com/apps/security/eraserdrop-portable
Free program that securely erases files from your computer by writing
zeros over them. You thought that "deleting" a file gets rid of it?
No, it is still on your hard disk until it is written over, and can be easily
recovered. Throwing away or donating an old computer to the thrift store?
Identity thieves can recover all kinds of "deleted" files from your
hard disk, and have been known to recover credit card numbers, passwords, bank
account numbers, and all kinds of sensitive data from discarded computers. Don't
believe it? Try out the free program "Recuva", and you will be
surprised at how many files you can recover, even from a reformatted
disk!
Miscellaneous Useful Sites:
Aaron Sipf Photos.
http://www.aaronsipfphoto.com
Excellent plant photos, concentrating on Italy.
AgriSeek.
www.agriseek.com
A marketplace where buyers and sellers of all kinds of agricultural products and
equipment can connect.
For USDA notices of new regulations: http://www.aphis.usda.gov/ppd/rad/webrepor/ppq.html
Check here to find notices of proposed regulations and public comment
periods. Ranges from sensible and rational approaches to genuine pests, to
reckless bureaucratic pork.
The Writings of Charles Darwin.
http://pages.britishlibrary.net/charles.darwin/
Fully searchable. A great resource on the writings of a great man.
Darwin Day Website.
www.darwinday.org/
Celebrate Darwin's birthday!
Ecofascism.
http://www.spunk.org/texts/places/germany/sp001630/ecofasc.html
The full text of EcoFascism: Lessons From The German Experience, by Biehl
& Staudenmaier, 1995.
Evolution Education.
http://evolution.berkeley.edu
Operated by the University of California to help teachers, it is the subject
of a lawsuit challenging public funding of the site.
Fallacy Files.
www.fallacyfiles.org
More than you ever wanted to know about fallacious reasoning! From
Abstraction to Wishful Thinking. Learn to recognize false and misleading
arguments, as used in daily life. Stop being duped!
Fallacy Definitions.
www.datanation.com/fallacies/index.htm
Definitions of fallacies like "Straw Man", "Ad Hominem",
etc. Learn to recognize false and misleading arguments, as used in daily life.
Logical Fallacies
https://logicalfallacies.org
Well laid-out site on fallacies.
ForFarmers.
www.forfarmers.com
A marketplace for buying and selling crops, livestock, seeds, and agricultural
equipment and services, as well as job opportunities.
Earth and Moon Viewer.
www.fourmilab.ch/earthview/vplanet.html
Amazing different views of the earth, including up to date weather satellite
imagery.
The Eucalyptus of California. http://wwwlibrary.csustan.edu/bsantos/euctoc.htm#toc
A wonderful paper on Eucalyptus in California - history, botany, uses,
cultivation, and more. More information than you ever imagined.
Images of Brazilian Cacti in habitat:
http://www.fortunecity.com/greenfield/swallowtail/785/images.html
The International Triggerplant Society.
http://www.triggerplants.org/
Triggerplant (Stylidium) enthusiasts.
Malvaceae information: http://www.malvaceae.info/
My Garden.
www.mygarden.net.au
Big gardening website based in Australia, but with worldwide links. Home and
garden resources online.
National Remote Automatic Weather Stations Data Server. http://raws.fam.nwcg.gov/index.html
Government at its best! Raw data from automated weather stations all across
the U.S. In 2005, when I first listed this site, I said "Probably the only
people in government who aren't lying to you." Well, I was wrong! They give
fake info on the exact locations of the weather stations, probably to foil
vandals. Still a great service, and a government program I can support—but
jeeze, is there anyone in government not lying to us?
Remote Automatic Weather Stations Climate Archive. www.wrcc.dri.edu/wraws/
Maps showing approximate, but fake locations of the weather stations, with
archived data from each station.
Plant Systematics.
http://www.plantsystematics.org
Has an extensive library of plant photos.
The Plant Kingdom.
http://answers.mheducation.com/biology/biology/plant-kingdom
Good basic plant biology - great place to get an education on this.
More Links!
Catalog of Botanical Links. www.ou.edu/cas/botany-micro/idb-alpha/botany.html#a
The ultimate catalog of botanical links! Hundreds of links. I dare you to
surf them all!
Has everything from:
Still more Botanical Links.
www.rockgardener.com/last/resort.cfm
Very well laid out, with descriptions of what you get on each site to save
you from visiting sites that aren't just what you want.
FWOBA