Based on hand analysis of the texts, we have built a three-dimensional data matrix for each species, where columns represent Floras, rows represent characters, and the third dimension is the taxonomic hierarchy, allowing inheritance of information from higher taxa into species description where appropriate. Clearly even a na ve merge of information across rows will be useful. Genuine disagreements appear to be very rare.
Automatic processing is essential if our technique is to be used on a realistic scale.
We will use the GATE system , generously given to us and supported by the NLP group at the University of Sheffield , for IE from individual texts, and implement correlation heuristics to apply to its outputs. Preliminary trials suggest that GATE works surprisingly well even without any domain-specific knowledge. It is worth stressing that we aim only to produce unified descriptions of plant taxa. Although differences in taxonomic organisation between Floras pose problems which we will have to deal with, we have no intention of proposing unified taxonomies as such. On the contrary, by making the information in taxon descriptions available in a simple, neutral electronic format, we intend to support navigation between taxonomies, and even the creation of new ones, which may serve new purposes in systematics and biodiversity research.