>For example, you could search for a particular species, say N. villosa,
>and you would get not only the botanical information and images of the
>plant, but also:
>
> - a map of its growing areas
> - a list of nureries who sell it
> - a list of people who grow, trade and sell it
> - growing tips and instructions
All of the above suggestions (together perhaps with descriptions of the
plants, habitat info, historical notes etc. etc.) seem very desirable and
sensible to me. And I think it is possible to include and link all this
information to the database in a way as proposed step by step. This will
all be some dimensions easier if not a single individual does the whole job
but if we try to co-operate and get as many helping hands involved as
possible.
>There might also be a link that does a search of the CP discussion
>archives to pull up messages where this and related species were discussed.
Why not? If you have ideas how to accomplish this.
>I realize that keeping a database like this up-to-date would be difficult,
>since a lot of the supplier and grower information changes very quickly.
Well, some filtering (removing obvious noise) would be necessary as well.
>I also realize that this is a very ambitious idea - maybe overly ambitious.
I do not think any of your proposals are completely impossible to realize
(just a matter of time and # of people involved).
Kind regards
Jan