Field guide
The catalog is written by its readers. Here is how to press your plant into the house format.
The process
One clear anomaly per plant. A fern that grows toward lies is a specimen; a fern that does everything is a list.
Catalog number, common name, a plausible Latin taxon, where and when it was collected, and by whom.
Morphology, genetic analysis, cultivation, effects. Calm, clinical, specific. Let the details carry the weight.
One or two sentences, personal, often the line readers remember. Then send it to curator@wrongplants.org.
Every specimen is a single markdown file. The front matter is the catalog card; the body is the story.
---
number: H-0000
commonName: Your Plant
taxon: Genus species
wing: herbarium # or glasshouse
status: archived # cultivation, dormant, destroyed, missing
summary: One sentence for the card.
collected: { place: …, date: …, by: … }
anomalies: [human-dna]
genome:
fragment: ATGCCGTAaccgtTAGC # lowercase = anomalous
curatorNote: …
---
## Morphology
## Genetic analysis
## Cultivation
## Effects
No. Decide whether it is, on balance, wrong in a kind way. If you can't decide, it belongs in the Herbarium.
Use real terms correctly and sparingly. One precise detail (a GC content, a mitochondrial match) beats a paragraph of jargon.
Please do — list them under "Filed alongside". Shared history is what turns a catalog into a world.
Contributions are published under CC BY-SA 4.0, so others may build on your specimen as long as they credit you and share alike.