You can use the Record a plant screen to enter as many plant records as you need.
Your screen will be laid out slightly differently depending on whether you are using a mobile device or a laptop/desktop. On a mobile device, you will only see the occurrence form (and can begin entering your record). On laptop/desktop, you will see a list of any existing casual plant records in the left hand column, and the occurrence form in the right hand column.
On mobile, you can see the list of existing records by clicking the back button at the top left of your screen.
The occurence form
The first step is to complete the Occurrence form. We will work through each field in the form below.
Grid reference
To use grid references derived from your mobile device's GPS, make sure GPS is enabled if prompted.
Detail about the grid reference provided by GPS is shown as part of the list of records, along with an error radius. In the example below. the grid reference will be passed to the DDb in full, but in mapping queries would be treated as a 100m square (since the radius 11m is greater than a 10m square). Only edit the precision of an automatically assigned reference if the GPS-assigned location is erroneous.
You can also enter grid references directly into the textbox, or type a place name or postcode. Place names or postcodes used here will be converted into a grid reference (rather than the place name field below, which is intended as a text field).
You can also use the map to identify a grid reference, zooming in as required to get the appropriate level of accuracy.
Taxon
As you start entering a taxon name, suggestions will be made on likely matches. These suggestions will also highlight the number of records at monad and tetrad level, whether the taxon is national rare or scarce, and whether it is in the County Rare Plant Register.
You can also search by single letter genus. For example: p annua
The list of taxon names is optimised to take account of your current location. There may be a slight delay before localised information has downloaded. Local details may not be available if working without a network connection.
Recorders
Please list at least one individual primary recorder. You can also add determined by and confirmed by using the field below (and choosing the appropriate option from the pull down).
Place name
This is a text field that is intended to provide additional information to the grid reference. Suitable entries would be a town, village or site name.
Vice-county
This will normally be assigned automatically based on the grid reference.
Date
This will default to the current date.
Photo
This optional field allows the addition of a photo or series of photos. On mobile you can either take a new photo or browse existing photos.
On desktop you can browse existing photos.
Status
An optional field to indicate the origin status of the record. Note that the additional regenerating checkbox is intended to distinguish between an isolated occurrence that will probably vanish once the individual(s) die, v's a population that is established and will keep going. 'Regenerating' implies some level of establishment and could apply in conjunction with any of the 'origin' statuses.
Abundance
This optional field provides a number of ways of indicating the abundance of the plant being recorded. The default option is count, which expects a number.
If you want to record a null record, select absent from the list of options for Abundance.
There are other options available:
These options have their own pulldown boxes. For example, range:
and DAFOR:
Stage
Another optional field. Please record the most mature phase that is present.
Habitat
Again, an optional field. As with Abundance, there are different options depending on the first pulldown you choose. For example, here are the sub-options for Woodland:
Attributes
Attributes are intended to store additional information about the record in a structured way. The list of attributes is likely to grow over time.
Once you have chosen your option, you can enter the associated value. For example, with altitude, you can then enter the value in metres.
Any other comments
This is an unstructured free text field
To add another record click the + New Record button (displayed as a green + icon on mobile).
If you are online then the entries will be saved as you go, automatically. Otherwise, the records will be remembered on your device, and will be sent when you have a network connection again.
The casual survey form
All records entered using the Record a plant option go into an automatically created dataset, titled using your name and the current year. On desktop or laptop, you will be able to see the casual survey form at all times. On mobile, click the back link from the Record a Plant screen to see it. Click into the Set of casual records tab to see the dataset details.
If you click into Your plant records, you will see a list of all existing records.
From here, you can click into the record to edit it. To delete a plant record, find it in the list and click the 'bin' icon.
You can also use the two icons to order the records: # to order by grid reference, and AZ to order by taxon name.