Malpighiales Scratchpad

The Malpighiales Scratchpad is a social networking tool to build, share and publish information on the diversity of the Malpighiales.

Scratchpads are an easy to use, well supported application that enable communities of researches online. Sites are hosted at the Natural History Museum, London.

The Malpighiales Scratchpad is a new site, built and populated by Emma McLarnon (BSc Biology, Leeds University), as part of a work placement web-based biodiversity project at Kew (2010 – 2011). It is now being developed by the Malpighiales Team at Kew, with invaluable help from a number of collaborating researchers.

Currently the Scratchpad has two main aims.

• To house the genus pages and image galleries for Kew’s Interactive Key to Genera of Euphorbiaceae s.l., Salicaceae and Achariaceae (see that project). The interactive key includes all genera from these families but has been enhanced for New World Euphorbiaceae by the addition of generic descriptions and extra images, and these are sited on the Scratchpad. We currently have over 5000 images of dried and live New World Euphorbiaceae s.l.*
• To promote collaboration in Malpighiales research and provide information and identification tools for the included taxa.

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* Euphorbiaceae s.l. includes: Centroplacaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Pandaceae, Peraceae, Phyllanthaceae, Picrodendraceae and Putranjivaceae.