About this site

This site contains many photographs I have taken over the years of flowers, many in and around Geneva (Switzerland) where I live and in the surrounding mountains (Alpes and Jura).

What started as a quick personal catalogue of flowers growing in the "Val d'Abondance" (nearby Haute Savoie, France), has grown into a more complete set of just about any plant I could clearly identify and photograph.

Since I began, I have joined several botanic societies and associatiions, notiably the "Sociéte Botanique de Genève" and the "Association pour la connaissance de la Flore du Jura".  Both organise regular outings which are always lead by a prominent local botanist.  Although I am still very much an amateur botanist (and photographer for that matter), I have learned a great deal from both groups and their members.  On the page header are two pull-down menus that lead to specific pages dedicated to resent outings of these groups that I attended.  At the bottom of each menu is a link to their respective websites.

Using this site

The menu on the left is organised by plant family name using the present commonly agreed latin names of the families.  If this is not a convient way for you to find a photograph, then try searching using the search box in the page header. Search terms should be full words (sorry, no wild card searches) and at least three characters long.  Try "alpine" as an example.  To use the menu on the left, just click on the [+] beside the family name and a submenu will open showing the flower genus in this family.  Opening another level will display the species in that genus.  Clicking the species name will display information about the plant, its names in various languages, and any photographs I have of that plant.  Clicking on the small photos will display a larger picture in a new window.  I need to warn you that some of the photos are now quite old and predate modern digital technology.  I am trying to root these out and get more recent high-quality digital photographs.

For example, to find the common daisy (Bellis perennis in latin and a member of the Daisy family (Asteraceae in Latin), click first on Asteraceae and then Bellis, and finally on B. perennis.

Over time I hope to extend this photo collection to include flower photograps from further afield, but the trouble is being sure of the correct latin name and not offending my "real" botanist fiends by making incorrect determinations of plants.  I will also add a native languge index, so that the site visitor can display a full list of all plants in my catalog in one of several languges (English, French, German, etc.).