Work in any order. Set any character in any sequence. Save the file — it will outlive your phone. ↓ Save this file

Session save keeps the current key path in this browser.

Active Filters

Start anywhere. Tap Location to filter by state or province, or open any panel to add character data.

Unsure of a discrete state? Use Uncertain — it won't eliminate any taxa.

Florilegium Caricis · North America

An Interactive Character Matrix and Identification Key for Carex of North America

T.M. Jones, Ph.D. · TJID3 Research, Cleveland, Ohio · ORCID 0000-0001-7372-6345
DOI 10.5281/zenodo.19138828 · CC BY 4.0

What This Is

An identification tool for 466 Carex taxa occurring in North America north of Mexico, drawn from treatment text in Flora of North America North of Mexico, Volume 23 (Ball, Reznicek & Murray, eds., Oxford University Press, 2002). Not a dichotomous key. A multi-access filter: set any character in any order, and the key returns only the taxa still consistent with your specimen.

Approximately 15 characters are encoded per taxon — culm height, leaf width, perigynium dimensions, achene dimensions, terminal spike sexuality, spike arrangement, and distributional data for U.S. states and Canadian provinces, as a flat, queryable data model embedded directly in this file.

How to Use It

Start with Location Tap your state or province to immediately restrict the candidate set. Often the single most powerful filter.

Add Measurements Enter the range you observe. A taxon matches if its documented range overlaps yours. Leave either end blank for open-ended queries.

Add Morphology Select discrete character states to further narrow the list.

Uncertain marks a discrete character as considered but ambiguous No taxa are eliminated, but the character is tracked.

Methodology

Character extraction followed the Čысты human-orchestrated multi-model convergence methodology (Jones, 2025; DOI 10.5281/zenodo.18988588), in which quantitative ranges were parsed directly from FNA treatment prose under human editorial direction and taxonomic validation. All numeric values are traceable to source treatments. The human editor bears responsibility for all taxonomic decisions, curation choices, and interpretive judgment.

Built following the 20-Year File / Digital Paratype architecture: a single HTML artifact, readable by any standards-compliant browser without installation, dependency resolution, or network access. Provenance markers embedded per Čысты model-protection methodology.

This is a primitive. Not an application. Not a traditional webpage. A zero-dependency, single-file HTML document that runs in any browser, requires nothing, and will still open in twenty years. Just save it.

Field Voucher Notebook

Create voucher

Local notebook

An Interactive Character Matrix and Identification Key for Carex of North America