...

The DELTA spec would probably allow you to include a complete description as a lump of text, but it would not be particularly useful to do so.

Yes, you could do this. It would be slightly more useful to break the text up into text characters. For example,

#1. <synonymy>/ #2. <comments on habit>/ #3. <comments on leaves>/ #4. <comments on flowers>/ #5. <comments on distribution>/ #6. <general comments and discussion>/

These could still be combined into a single description, but could also be displayed and searched separately if necessary.

What is usually done is to intersperse such text characters at the appropriate places in a list of coded characters. They can then be used as repositories for information that the author can't or doesn't want to code. The information they contain is accessible in Intkey, and can be used in much the same way as coded information.

I've done this. I use it as a check -- If I want/need to reverify the information again ...; then I don't have to go back to the original source because it's included in the data set.

Susan ----- Susan Farmer sfarmer@goldsword.com Botany Department, University of Tennessee http://www.goldsword.com/sfarmer/Trillium