CROFlora, a database application to handle the Croatian vascular flora

CROFlora is a multi-user database application for species-oriented and specimen-ori­ ented systematic and taxonomic work on Croatian flora. It is designed for dealing with all kinds of data that are commonly used in systematic botany and floristic work. CROFlora comprises several main modules: (1) taxonomy, (2) herbarium, (3) literature, (4) chorology and (5) related data, such as ecology and multimedia. CROFlora was built over a re­ lational database. The database relies on the normalised data model, which is presented in the paper. Amongst other features, the client application provides the user with extended query by example (QBE) capabilities and with user-customised reports. The reports in­ clude taxon sheets, taxa checklists, herbarium labels, bibliography labels and other com­ plex reports. The database can be connected to a geographical information system (GIS), which empowers easy production of distribution maps and other spatial analysis. The Web interface enables Internet searches.