Help

General Help

Ok I assume you're at this page because you're lost, stuck or a complete computer newbie. God help you if you're all three. Learning computers when you're fifty, sixty, or even thirty, is a very humbling experience. My advice is to try and break the computer as often as possible, not physically but by using it. Read, read, and read some more and you'll become much more comfortable using the keyboard and mouse. Remember they've taught gorillas to use computers, ah , maybe that's not a good example. One of our customers described herself as a chimp with a stick, trying to get the termites out of the nest, maybe that's closer? So get a banana and keep trying.
Also, if you don't have a computer yet but are going to buy one for web stuff and email. Buy a Mac or a pre-built Linux computer. We have one windows machine(that I loath) that has had to be rebuilt two or three times last year, more than the other six linux and two mac machines combined.

Help moving around

The highlighted words are hyperlinks that send you off to other pages. This web site has about 3200 pages organized into at least 5 levels. Move through the hyperlinks (usually blue text with underlining)to the next level. The hyperlinks can be , text, boxes, or mapped pictures. We've stopped using mapped pictures, Java script, flash and other bells and whsitles because too many people are confused by them. Frustrating people with flashy blinking buttons is not what the web is about. Content in the form of pictures and information is what the web is about. We've moved from a printed catalog to the web because of customer requests for pictures. Trying to update the 'Manual of California Native Plants' killed 3 computers. The 1000 images made up a 100+ meg file. It is a whole lot easier and cheaper to give you full content on the web.

Sometimes the pages have trouble printing right because of your software, your monitor or we screwed something up. Try clicking on the page in various spots and checking it in print preview. We're limited in our use of frames(layered pages of tables), but there are still a few left. You may be on the wrong table, or in Explorer, and it may just decide it doesn't like you, the page, and your dog.

What is a Native Plant?

Native plants are plants that have evolved on the site. Within reason, that was to the last major climate change. In California that's at least 10000-20000 years. That sounds fairly easy but California is not what it was. The forests are gone, replaced with chaparral at best, annualized grasslands(weeds) at worst. We've attempted to correct for this with the mynativeplants.com selector. But take a walk or drive in your area and see if you can find a weed free(grass free) slope or area. Those trees and shrubs are probably the ones you should be planting. Not the weedy ones,(Star thistle, brome, most of the grasses, Castor bean, Arundo, pampas grass, Bermuda grass) but the pines, oaks, mountain lilac, manzanitas, sages, poppies,and lupines that are supposed to be there.

What does all this mean!?!

The Scientific Name-

The scientific name is the generic and the specific name together, with the generic name always first and capitalized and the specific name always second (and uncapitalized). Everywhere in the world you may go, the scientific name is (supposed to be) exactly the same. Every plant has two names, the name of the genus it belongs to (the generic name), and a specific name, referring to the species to which it belongs; but, and this is the confusing part, all the names are in Latin! The genus is the name of the little related group that the plant belongs to. For example, take maple trees; there are lots of different kinds of maples, but they all have the generic name Acer, which means maples in Latin, and so the Silver maple, Japanese maple, Big Leaf Maple, Vine Maple, and Norway Maple all have the first (generic) name of Acer, but different specific names. Japanese Maple is Acer (again, the generic name) palmatum (the specific name of the species ), Big leaf Maple is Acer (the generic name) macrophyllum(the specific name meaning big leaf ), Vine Maple is Acer circinatum, etc. For example, the specific name for Japanese Maple, as stated above, is palmatum. But that name palmatum, by itself means nothing, because there are more plants than one with the name palmatum. Also, the name Acer means nothing by itself. Acer what? To what maple are you referring? See the problem? Only when you use the scientific name; the generic and the specific name together, does the name have meaning .

Genus- a group of closely related species.

Species- Classically, a group of very closely related individuals that will only breed with each other.

Variety- a variation of a species, where the individuals have different flower color, or leaf color, or leaf shape, etc. In this manual we are also referring to it as a cultivar name which is a cultivated variety, grown by man or a hybrid name, a hybrid being a cross between two species.

spp. - This abbreviation means several species, while sp. means one species. So, if I say Acer spp., I mean several species of maples.

We also have the plant list sorted by cultivars and common names. (The database is in Linux, and it is case sensitive.) Use Google on our front page to search for the specific plant if you cannot find it.

Help with Computer Stuff

Learn about your browser software. If you're stuck using Microsoft Explorer, the software sucks. Learn the most important part of browsing, the back button, back yourself out of where you went wrong. Forward moves you forward. You also might want to look at Mozilla or Fierfox. We're using Mozilla, Firefox, Safari and other Mozilla based browsers. Opera is ok, but I've removed every reference to Internet Explorer I can from the windows machine. I swear I get a virus just opening it.

If the page locks up it may be a buggy modem, a bad network provider, Microsoft code not liking you(or your dog). If you can, move back to the previous page, if that doesn't work try logging off and logging on. If that doesn't work you may have to log off, shut down and restart. If this happens more than once a week something's wrong. Common problems are: windows memory issues, defrag the drive, buggy programs(windows issues), buggy hardware(that cheap modem you got for $9.99), lock your cookies(search your drive for cookies, open with notepad, delete all but the first couple of lines, save, and under file properties, make read only), clear your cache and cookies, if those don't work, buy a Mac or Linux, they usually work.

Install a industrial virus/trojan/spy software like AVG, it's free for personal use. We will not open a windows machine on any network without AVG on it.

Help using a Search Engine

Educate yourself on the basic of information, the world becomes a little clearer.

Nature magazine found that most researchers didn't use the search engines the way they should. Start with the best engines and use as many words as you think relate to your question, weirdest words first. In other words, if you want to know about native plants, type in " native (your city) plants California ", if you're looking for a nursery, add nursery, if looking for a botanists, add botanist. If your search is for mushrooms associated with a particular spot, type in the type of tree, mushroom(weirdest words first) then your region. We used to list 20 search engines for you, Google has changed that. All the other engines have become poor advertizing engines.

Google rel=”nofollow” lists by pages of content relevant to your search and number of links to the site. This search engine usually gives the best results. If Google can't find it, you've got problems. We've included it on our front page for you. I found this one when it was still at Stanford and the guys were still in school, it was better then than many of the 'search' engines now. (I liked the rolling eyes they used.)

Alexa Has done some cool things with Google. The spellcheck is missing, but there are other things that are very useful.

For those of you that are terrified of all pesticides this site has the best information I've seen. In larger yards and acreage keep the weeds out, or learn about what the safest chemical controls are! The EXtension TOXicology NETwork

Here is another version of the help geared for the California native plant pages.

We're also working on a glossary for terms used in the general text

If you still are not finding your question or your answer, Email us , we really do try to answer even the dumbest questions.

Many times we're just not aware that you do not know, (we were trained as scientists and we miss some really silly things, like fuschia(misspelled 121 times, at least speeling has nothing to do with intelegence...it's a jean!)).

Sometimes we can't believe we missed your question, DUH! but try the Google search on the front page, many times the answer is there, just deep amongst the 5000 pages.