AusGrass: Grasses of Australia
(Version 1.0, July 2002)

Welcome to AusGrass, an interactive information system and key for the 1323 native and naturalised species of grass in Australia. This number includes all formally described species and several as-yet undescribed and informal taxa. Keys are provided for many of the recognised subspecies and varieties.

With AusGrass you will be able to:

• Use either interactive or dichotomous keys to quickly and accurately identify any of the 1323 species of grass in Australia (using fresh or dry specimens, irrespective of whether they are in flower or fruit);
• easily access comprehensive information for each species, including a botanical description, notes on their distribution and taxonomy, and images for most species including diagnostic line drawings, scanned specimens, photographs and stereomicrographs;
• quickly navigate between taxa using hyperlinks;
• browse information by species name, generic name, common name or synonym;
• view supplementary information including a glossary of terms and an extensive list of references.

Authorship and citation

Authors

D.Sharp.

B.K.Simon.

Data derived from the World Grass Database (D. Clayton, 1999), the Flora of Australia, and other sources detailed in the acknowledgements.

Photographs and line drawings are provided by numerous workers, as detailed in the acknowledgements.

AusGrass is a collaborative project of the Queensland Herbarium and the Australian Biological Resources Study, Canberra.

Publishers

AusGrass is published by the Australian Biological Resources Study, Canberra, and the Environmental Protection Agency, Queensland.

Production

AusGrass is produced by CSIRO Publishing.

This work may be cited as:

Sharp, D. & Simon, B.K. (2002), AusGrass: Grasses of Australia. CD-ROM, Version 1.0 (Australian Biological Resources Study, Canberra, and Environmental Protection Agency, Queensland).

Assistance

For help and hints on getting started with AusGrass:

Read the Help topic "Getting Started" (available when you have started the key: click the button labelled "Help" in the tool bar of the main screen and choose "Contents").

Run the tutorial (available when you have started the key: click the button labelled "Help" in the tool bar of the main screen).

Click on the word "Tools" on the banner of this screen and select either "How to use AusGrass" or "Identification tips".

For further technical information concerning AusGrass contact:

Donovan Sharp or Bryan K. Simon
Queensland Herbarium
Brisbane Botanic Gardens Mt Coot-tha
Mt Coot-tha Rd
Toowong QLD 4066

Fax: 07 3896 9624

Email: [email protected]

Use this same contact to provide us with feedback concerning the functionality and effectiveness of AusGrass, or to discuss specimens that cannot be named after using the key.

For information about Lucid (the software running this package):

See "About Lucid" and the Lucid Help in the help menu, after you have started the key, or go to www.lucidcentral.org

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