ECOS Guide to the Ecology of the Northern Rockies

How to Use the ECOS Plant Guide

Starting the Guide

1. Start an internet browser (IE 6 or Mozilla Firefox recommended) and go to the ECOS Natural History Guide website (www.bioed.org/NHGuide).
2. Click on the Plant Guide button on the left or follow the link at the bottom that says "go to the plant guide". To browse the list of species in the plant guide follow the link that says "Select a Plant by Name ". A list of species described so far appears on the screen. To look at common names click on “common name” at top of species list. To go back to scientific names click on “sci name” at top of screen.

To View a Species Description

1. Click on a species name.
2. Scroll screen to view all the information about this species.

To View Photos

1. Both the main plant photo and the thumbnails (the small photos below the large one) can be enlarged to show greater detail. Clicking on a thumbnail will make it appear as the larger main image.
2. Clicking on the main image will open the images page and show an even larger image. Again, clicking on a thumbnail will make it appear as the larger main image.
   To return to the plant description, click the back button on your browser.

To Search for a plant species (scientific name)

1. Click on the link towards top of screen called “plant search”
2. Click on a plant characteristic that you have information about, such as “leaf type”.
3. Click on an item in the list that best describes your plant. For a ash tree, for example this might be “odd-pinnate”.
4. Click on the checkbox to the left of this characteristic so that a check mark appears. This means when a search is done it will only list plants with this type of leaf.
5. Repeat for as many characteristics as you have information about your plant.
6. Click on “search” button towards bottom of screen. All the species sharing all the characteristics you selected are listed on the left hand side of the screen. Click on each of the species and examine the description and photos until to you find the one that best describes your plant.
7. If too many species are listed, then you should add more characteristics so a smaller number of species will be listed, Select another characteristic, click the checkbox of this new characteristic, and search again.

To Search for common names of plant species

1. Enter either a whole name or a whole or partial word of the common name in the “common name” field at the bottom of the search screen.
2. Note that computer will search for the words anywhere in the list of common names given for each species. Since there are many different common names often given for each species we have included all commonly used ones so that if a person knows a plant by a particular name they should be able to find it. This also allows searching for groups such as “ash” which would include all the mountain ashes (Sorbus spp.), ash-leaved maple and true ashes (Fraxinus spp.).
   Please note that a common name search cannot be combined with other search characteristics and will ignore any other checked boxes above.

To print out the description of a plant species

In your browser, click "File" and select "Print". A printer friendly page will print out.

ECOS Program
Division of Biological Sciences
The University of Montana-Missoula | 32 Campus Drive
Missoula, MT 59812
phone: 406-243-6016 | fax: 406-243-4184
ecosproject@gmail.com
Copyright 2003

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