To use the Encyclopaedia click on one of the buttons, top left. For example to find a genus, click on the 'Genera' button and type in a few letters of the name of the genus you want.
A complete list of the genera currently covered in the encyclopaedia can be found here:
A complete list of the plant familes currently used in the encyclopaedia and a list of the botanical authors credited with naming species can be found here:
The printed AGS Encyclopaedia of Alpines was published in 1993 and was heralded as "the standard reference in its field for many, many years to come".
As part of the process of developing an online version of the Encyclopaedia, the original text has been scanned and converted into a website version that can now be continually updated and extended. AGS members can also make contributions (text or images) about their favourite genera and species and we hope that many of you will do this.
Work is progressing on improving the range of images used to illustrate the encyclopaedia and on rectifying omissions in the original volumes. This will be an ongoing project for the foreseeable future.
The Saxifraga section of the Plant Encyclopaedia is funded by the David Harding Foundation in memory of Winton Harding.
At the bottom of this page, you can find the Introduction to the Original Printed Encyclopaedia.
COMPLETED
This involved the design of a database to hold the data for the encyclopaedia and the screen layout and programs for presenting the information to the user.
COMPLETED
This was a very tedious job. There were not only mis-scanned words ('Hardy'='Flardy'), but also places where the structure of the text was wrongly construed. This would have resulted in many species being missed and spurious species being created during the import Stage.
COMPLETED
It still needs careful proofreading as there are lots of one-off mis-scans that couldn't be easily detected at Stage 3.
COMPLETED
This is important as the proofreaders will be given editing permission for the genera they will cover and will want to make corrections as easily as possible.
COMPLETED
This requires a large team of volunteers, each taking responsibility for one or more genera. Many people have already offered their services.
COMPLETED
These were all drawn by Christine Grey-Wilson and were an invaluable aid to identification within a genus. They were scanned at the same time as the original text but now need extracted from the scans and incorporated in the online version.
COMPLETED (see Saxifraga hirculus for an example)
Original images from the paper encyclopaedia also need extracted and incorporated in the online version.
COMPLETED
This worked initially by linking in images from the main AGS website, but the images needed to be better indexed so that an appropriate image with appropriate permission can be identified easily for use by the encyclopaedia. The official AGS digital image library that has been implemented since contains about 32,000 images - a tremendous resource. The digital image library is now very closely integrated with the encyclopaedia
COMPLETED
This material was on obsolete discs and an attempt has been made to retrieve the files from these discs. Some has been successfully retrieved and will be incorporated in the online encylopaedia.
IN PROGRESS
Many individual gardeners were keenly, some almost obsessively, interested in alpine plants and rock gardening prior to the formation of the Alpine Garden Society in 1929. The enthusiasm engendered by the establishment of an organised society devoted to alpines, however, acted as a catalyst for devotees of the mountains and alpine plants to pursue their passion in the company of like-minded people and to pass on their expertise and knowledge to other gardeners who, in return, became alpine addicts.
By the beginning of World War 2 membership of the AGS was 2,000 and after the war steady and sustained growth was achieved with the formation of local groups and a series of publications devoted to alpine plants being published by the Society. During the last ten years there has been a considerable upsurge in membership, now standing at 13,000 and a continuing demand for more and more detailed information on alpine plants. It is, therefore, both timely and very appropriate that our Society should have taken the decision to publish what is undoubtedly the most comprehensive, informative and accurate reference work on alpine plants that has ever been produced to date anywhere in the world: the Alpine Garden Society's Encyclopaedia of Alpines.
Many alpine gardeners use Reginald Farrer's classic The English Rock Garden (1919) plus Sampson Clay's supplement The Present Day Rock Garden (1937) as a basic reference work, but inevitably with new plants tumbling into cultivation from all over the world, they now fall far short of our requirements. Recent AGS monographs on various genera have satisfied partially the thirst for knowledge of alpine and rock garden plants but the need for information on a world-wide basis has been apparent for some years. It was first discussed by the AGS Committee in the early 1980s and in 1985 it was decided to launch the Encyclopaedia Project. Kenneth Beckett was appointed Editor in 1986 and began the daunting task of planning the work and persuading knowledgeable AGS members to contribute accounts of genera of which they had particular expertise. The inclusion in the Encyclopaedia of just under one thousand genera of alpines known to be in cultivation, or to have been in cultivation, from the world's mountain flora is a remarkable achievement. Ken Beckett is to be congratulated and warmly thanked by all interested in alpine and rock garden plants for his extraordinary diligence, persistence and scholarship in preparing this outstanding reference work for publication.
It should also be recorded that Ken Beckett further undertook to write more than half the accounts himself; a major achievement by any standards by an Editor of such a detailed and comprehensive work.
The very important contributions made by AGS members, the design of the publication by John Fitzmaurice and overall production by Christopher Grey-Wilson, the Society's Editor, have all added greatly to the authority of the most ambitious publishing project yet undertaken by The Alpine Garden Society.
Its coverage in two volumes is unequalled and there is no doubt in my mind that it will remain the standard reference in its field for many, many years to come.