Technical details (not up to date)

The data model

This page, as well as the data model itself, are under construction!

All data in Flora-On is stored in a graph: taxonomy, distribution and native status, occurrences, morphology, images, etc.

This page describes the existing types of nodes (vertexes) and the types of relationships used to model all types of data.

Facet	Nodes	Relationships
Taxonomy	TaxEnt, Territory	PART_OF, SYNONYM, HYBRID_OF, BELONGS_TO, EXISTS_IN
Occurrence	SpeciesList	OBSERVED_IN

Entities (nodes)

TaxEnt

Represents a "taxonomic" entity. These entities are not names: they represent the biological entity, i.e., groups of populations that are deemed to belong to the same biological entity. See a detailed explanation here.

Field	Type	Description
name	String
author	String
rank	TaxonRanks
annotation	String
sensu	String
current	Boolean
name	String
worldDistribution Completeness	WorldNative...	Whether or not the world native distribution is complete, regardless of incompleteness in the exotic distribution.
territoriesWith CompleteDistribution	Array of String	The IDs of the largest territories for which the distribution of the taxon is complete (both native and exotic)

Territory

Represents an arbitrary geographical area.

SpeciesList

Represents an inventory of taxa at a given location. If the data pertains to occasional observations, the fields relating to the inventory are left blank.

The SpeciesList does not have data about the observed taxa. The observed taxa are represented as graph links instead. See OBSERVED_IN.

Field	Type	Description	DWC direct equivalent
latitude	Float	Decimal latitude of the inventory. May be exact or approximate (see precision).	decimal Latitude
longitude	Float	Decimal longitude of the inventory. May be exact or approximate (see precision).	decimal Longitude
SRS	String	EPSG code of the Spatial Reference System. Defaults to EPSG:4326 (geographic coordinates in WGS 84)	geodeticDatum*
elevation	Float	Mean elevation, in meters.	verbatim Elevation*
geometry	String	The geometry representing this inventory, in Well-Known Text format. May contain geometries of types POINT, LINESTRING, POLYGON	footprintWKT
precision	Integer	Precision of the coordinates in meters, i.e. approximate radius of a circle where the point is located.	coordinate Uncertainty InMeters
gridPrecision	Integer	If this field is provided, the coordinate is generalized to the (UTM) square that contains it, in which case this field is the size of the grid considered. This field is ignored if the CRS is not projected.
year	Integer	Year of the inventory.	year
month	Integer	Month of the inventory.	month
day	Integer	Day of the inventory.	day
complete	boolean	Did the observer record all taxa he was able to detect in the sampled area? true implies that the area of the inventory or a polygon geometry must be given.
habitat	String	Textual description of the habitat. It may be free text, or text from previously standardized categories.
pubNotes	String	Public comments to be associated with this inventory.
privNotes	String	Private comments to be associated with this inventory.
tags	Array of String	List of custom tags to associate with the inventory, for filtering and organization purposes.
observers	Array of String	List of observers/authors of this inventory. The first author will be marked as the main author.	recordedBy
colectors	Array of String	List of collectors, in case this is a record form herbarium specimen.
dets	Array of String	List of determiners, in case this is a record form herbarium specimen.
verbLocality	String	The original textual description of the location of this inventory.	verbatim Locality
locality	String	The nearest toponym to the location of this inventory.	locality*
municipality	String	Administrative division.	municipality
province	String	Administrative division.	stateProvince
county	String	Administrative division.	county
code	String	User-supplied ID of this inventory. Does not need to be unique. Unique IDs are internal to the database.
threats	String	Textual description of threats observed in this location.
maintainer	String	The name of the person who was/is responsible for inserting/processing/georreferencing this inventory/record.
area	Float	Area that was sampled, in square meters, in case this was a complete inventory.
totalCover	Float
aspect	String	Orientation, either in degrees or as textual acronym.
slope	Integer	Estimated slope, in percentage.
meanHeight	Float
geology	String	Geology/lithology.

Character

Attribute

Author

Relationships

PART_OF

SYNONYM

HYBRID_OF

OBSERVED_IN

Represents the observation of a taxon (possibly not identified) in a SpeciesList (inventory).

The taxon ID is not part of the observation - the taxon entity is connected as the starting vertex of this graph link.

Field	Type	Description
phenoState	String	Phenological state of the observed individuals. One of UNKNOWN, VEGETATIVE, FLOWER, DISPERSION, FLOWER_DISPERSION. See PhenologicalStates.
naturalization	String	Whether the presence of this taxon in this location is wild or cultivated. One of WILD, CULTIVATED.
confidence	String	Confidence of the identification as provided by its author. One of CERTAIN, ALMOST_SURE, DOUBTFUL.
verbTaxon	String	In cases where identification was not possible, a memo to aid the user recall how the observed plant was like.
comment	String	Comment to be associated with this taxon in the inventory.
labelData	String	For herbarium vouchers only. Text written in the herbarium sheet label.
accession	String	For herbarium vouchers only. The herbarium accession code.
abundance	String	The number of individuals observed, as an exact number or a range.
typeOfEstimate	String	How the number of individuals observed was estimated. One of EXACT_COUNT, APPROXIMATE_COUNT, ROUGH_ESTIMATE. See TypeOfPopulationEstimate.
cover	String	The cover of this taxon in the sampled area.
coverScale	String	The type of index used to estimate cover. One of PERCENT_AREA, BRAUN_BLANQUET, TEXTUAL, AREA, OTHER_SCALE
hasPhoto	boolean	Was this taxon, at this location, photographed?
hasSpecimen	boolean	Was this taxon, at this location, collected?
institutionCode	String	The herbarium code where the specimen is preserved.
validationStatus	String	The validation status of this observation. One of SPECIMEN_VERIFIED, ASSUMED_CORRECT, DOUBTFUL, PROBABLY_WRONG, WRONG, NOT_VALIDATED
dateInserted	String	The date when this observation was inserted in the database.
uuid	String	A unique identifier of this observation.
code	String	User-supplied ID of this inventory. Does not need to be unique.

EXISTS_IN

Describes the relationship between a TaxEnt and a Territory.

Field	Type	Description
nativeStatus	NativeStatus
occurrenceStatus	OccurrenceStatus
introducedStatus	IntroducedStatus
naturalizationDegree	NaturalizationDegree
abundanceLevel	AbundanceLevel
uncertainOccurrenceStatus	Boolean	If true, the identity of the taxon in this territory is uncertain, but, shall the identification be correct, then it occurs with the reported Status.

BELONGS_TO

HAS_QUALITY

ATTRIBUTE_OF

The Flora-On API

This is experimental!

Resource URL	Response	Description	Parameters
/query	HTML table or a SimpleTaxonResult JSON	Execute a free query to be interpreted. This currently covers taxonomy, morphology and geography facets.	q, fmt
/lists/checklist	HTML table or a ChecklistEntry JSON	Returns the list of all accepted names, i.e. all leaf taxon nodes that are current.	fmt

/update

Path	Parameters
/delete	id
/deleteleaf	id
/setsynonym	from to
/detachsynonym	from to
/add/link	from to type
/add/inferiortaxent	parent name author rank sensu annot current
/add/territory	name shortName rank annot
/add/taxent	name author rank
/update/taxent	id name author rank sensu annotation current worldDistributionCompleteness oldId replace
/update/territory	id name shortName type theme checklist