Sources
Where Plotwright gathers plant knowledge
The source catalog keeps citations, licensing, and data boundaries visible. Each source has a role: some provide common structured data, while others contribute tips, image candidates, or context that needs review.
How we use these sources
Repeatable facts — names, hardiness zones, native status, image credits, and sizing — are drawn from these sources and kept consistent across the catalog. Hands-on tips and regional cautions stay attributed to the source that made them, so every claim can be traced, checked, and updated rather than blurring into anonymous copy.
Canada Plant Hardiness
Natural Resources Canada - Primary source
Canadian plant hardiness maps and related climate suitability tools, including recent 1991-2020 mapping and USDA-equivalent extreme minimum temperature maps.
Canadian hardiness zones
Canadian USDA-equivalent zone context
Climate suitability notes
Municipality or regional lookup planning
GBIF
Global Biodiversity Information Facility - Primary source
A biodiversity data network for occurrence records and species evidence, useful for distribution context and source trails.
Occurrence records
Observation/specimen evidence
Distribution context
Dataset citations
iNaturalist
iNaturalist Network and contributors - Community source
A community observation platform useful for observation context, phenology leads, and selected licensed plant photos.
Observation context
Phenology leads
Photo candidates
Regional presence signals
Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center Native Plant Database
University of Texas at Austin - Curated source
A native-plant-focused reference covering ~9,000 North American native species, with structured per-state native distribution and Xerces Society pollinator value flags integrated into each plant page.
Native plant identification and traits
State-level native distribution
Pollinator + wildlife value
Propagation and growing conditions
Missouri Botanical Garden PlantFinder
Missouri Botanical Garden - Curated source
A strong horticultural reference for garden plant profiles, photos, and care context, with specific image-use conditions.
Garden plant profiles
Care notes
Cultivar context
PlantFinder images
NatureServe Explorer
NatureServe - Primary source
A continental conservation-status reference for plants, animals, and ecosystems, publishing per-subnation native flags and conservation ranks (G/N/S) for US states and Canadian provinces via a single-call public JSON API.
Per-subnation native vs introduced flag (finer than state-list intersections)
Conservation rank (G/N/S) at global, national, and subnational granularity
Stable elcode + ELEMENT_GLOBAL UID for cross-source pinning
Canadian province coverage symmetric with US state coverage
NC State Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox
NC State Extension - Curated source
A curated extension plant reference with horticultural traits, right-plant/right-place guidance, and Creative Commons image metadata.
Horticultural traits
Growing notes
Garden usage
Curated images
One Earth Bioregions & Ecoregions
One Earth - Curated source
Curated narrative profiles for the world’s ecoregions — geography, characteristic vegetation, climate, flagship species, and conservation status — built on the Dinerstein et al. framework. Plotwright’s primary source for ecoregion editorial summaries.
Ecoregion narrative descriptions
Characteristic vegetation + flagship species
Regional conservation context
Plotwright editorial synthesis
Plotwright - Editorial source
Draft plant notes created inside Plotwright before a fact has been backed by a public record, extension source, or expert review.
Draft page structure
Planning assumptions
Placeholder lifecycle guidance
RESOLVE 2017 Terrestrial Ecoregions (Dinerstein et al.)
RESOLVE / Dinerstein et al., BioScience (2017) - Primary source
The peer-reviewed 2017 map of the world’s 846 terrestrial ecoregions — successor to the WWF 2001 scheme — with each ecoregion’s biome, biogeographic realm, area, and "Nature Needs Half" protection tier. The structural foundation of every Plotwright ecoregion page.
Ecoregion boundaries + names (the /regions roster)
Biome + biogeographic realm classification
Nature Needs Half conservation tier (1-4)
Unsplash
Unsplash and contributors - Community source
A stock-photo source for free-to-use images that can support early public pages when each photo URL and credit is retained.
Stock/free photos
Hero images
Starter plant-page media
Commercial-use candidates
USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map
USDA Agricultural Research Service and PRISM Climate Group at Oregon State University - Primary source
The U.S. hardiness-zone reference for average annual extreme minimum temperature, with map graphics, GIS data, and ZIP-code lookup.
U.S. hardiness zones
ZIP-code zone lookup
Map context
Minimum-temperature caveats
USDA PLANTS Database
USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service - Primary source
A public plant record system for U.S. and territory plant identity, distribution, status, wetland, invasive, noxious, and conservation data.
Taxonomic identity
U.S. and territory distribution
Wetland and conservation characteristics
Invasive, noxious, threatened, and endangered status leads
Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Foundation and contributors - Community source
A media repository with public-domain and freely licensed images, useful when per-file attribution and license metadata are preserved.
Plant photos
Botanical illustrations
License metadata
Image source trails
Wikipedia (ecoregion articles)
Wikimedia Foundation - Community source
Community-maintained encyclopedia articles used as a corroborating cross-check for ecoregion descriptions — geography, vegetation, and climate — alongside the primary RESOLVE and curated One Earth sources.
Cross-checking ecoregion descriptions
Geographic + administrative extent
Pointers to primary references in article citations