CamelliaPedia

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Camelliapedia is the world’s first comprehensive online database developed specifically for camellias. There are many different applications for this tool, but the primary purpose for CamelliaPedia is to help gardeners all over the world identify their camellias. For years, old camellia varieties have been growing in gardens, but over this time they have lost their identity with tags falling off and experts that recognize them slowly fading away. Today, we have to relearn this rapidly fading language of identifying camellias, and CamelliaPedia is one of the best tools to help us accomplish this goal.

There are many forms of camellia information that could be helpful with identification, but the problem is that these sources are designed with information that is useful if you already know what you are looking for. CamelliaPedia was designed to allow anyone to search for specific criteria and multiple criteria that can narrow the search for a specific variety quickly and easily. We have developed CamelliaPedia with 51 different data fields to begin with. However, there is much more data that will have to be collected and entered over the years to make this database much more comprehensive and yielding. It will take a long time to constantly add all of the data that is needed to make our identification process easier, but the launch of CamelliaPedia signifies that we are finally moving in the right direction.

CamelliaPedia is designed to ultimately offer multiple images such as flower profile, foliage, plant, and special characteristics that make any variety or species more easily recognizable. The problem is that many of these digital images do not presently exist, so building this database the way that we plan will take time. This constant adding of variety and species data will go on as long as we continue to grow camellias. It is a never ending process. It will require continuous updating and correcting to make it more usable. At our launch of CamelliaPedia, we have over 400 varieties and species entered into the database with just the basic information. Obviously, there are 1000’s of varieties, so it is going to take a while to add many more of them into the database. We are beginning this process with varieties and species where at least bloom profile images are available. By the end of 2010, we anticipate to have well over 1000 entries into this need tool for identification.

Like everything else in life, information always can be entered incorrectly and database transfer of information always has its glitches. We are reviewing the data in CamelliaPedia on a constant basis, and we need your help in helping us to identify and correct errors. If you see something in CamelliaPedia that you think needs correcting, please e-mail and point out things that you thing need to be changes. Remember that CamelliaPedia is your database for camellias. It was built with love and knowledge, and hopefully it will become a great tool to help us inspire appreciation and preservation of the Genus Camellia for generations to come. To help facilitate this need for identification, CamelliaPedia is being made available to everyone with an Internet connection absolutely free. This tool is a brought to you by the Southeastern Camellia Society & CamelliaWeb and by our many sponsors and advertisers. If you like what you see, please support this project by joining the Southeastern Camellia Society and/or making a donation and also by supporting the commercial advertisers that make this tool accessible to you anytime you want to use it. Please enjoy CamelliaPedia and tell all your friends about this new identification tool.