Toru Kakimoto

A tree identification system using personal computers has been developed. This system consists of the following functions : identifying trees, displaying the various features of trees, and updating data. A multiple entry system has been adopted so that the retrieval and updating of the data are simple. The features used for retrieval are shown by colored images. Furthermore, communication and data access are all shown via pop-up window displays. Thus users can operate this system easily. The identification key consists of leaves, flowers, fruit and bark. The present maximum key size, which may be further expanded, covers 221 species of Japanese trees with 191 features. These features, the taxon names and the colored image data are used as a database for this system. Retrieval is obtained by using this database. Retrieval results in a scored group of taxa that match in the set features. With each retrieval, the score is added to the preceding score of the each taxa. The highest scored taxon is considered to be the result of the retrieval.