On-line Identification of Tropical Timber Trees <B>On-line Identification of Tropical Timber Trees</B><P> P.F. Burgess, *M.F. Newman and T.C. Whitmore</B><BR> *ABW Associates Ltd., c/o Royal Botanic Garden, 20A Inverleith Row, Edinburgh EH3 5LR, UK<B></B><P> All information about plant taxa hangs on the name so, to know a plant, it must be identified. Non-botanists working with plants face a number of problems. Keys often assume fluency in botanical termniology and the availability of certain parts of the plant. Foresters managing the Dipterocarpaceae in the rain forests of S.E. Asia often cannot use the keys in the recent revision in Flora Malesiana because the trees are very tall and do not flower and fruit every year.<BR> Field characters exist which allow identification to species of most mature Dipterocarpaceae. This project has built up DELTA descriptions of the timber-producing species and manuals have been published which come with an on-line identification system called ONLIN7. This works like a multi-access key but with certain features which printed keys cannot achieve.<BR> Using leaves collected in S.E. Asia, a demonstration of the most important features of ONLIN7 will be given.<BR> Many of the most economically valuable species in tropical forests belong to large genera and field keys are in demand. Logging companies routinely use computers in their field camps which makes on-line identification a practical possibility.<BR> DELTA is a world standard format with great flexibility. It is suggested that descriptions in monographic works should always be done in this format so that subsets of the data covering small geographical areas or using a restricted set of characters can be simply produced, without having to repeat a lot of labour.<P>