Am I missing something, but why do we keep on talking about states? This is the last thing I think is interesting (double entendre here...) States are frosting, observations - measurements, photos - make up the cake itself.

Is this a real issue or one of semantics? When I write "leaf shape ovate", does it mean I have observed the leaf and its shape most closely matches that of ovate, or that I have observed the shape character leaf and consider it to be in a state of ovateness?

The end result is probably the same...

But I think the issue is worth pondering... Perhaps Richard did not have it quite right and perhaps we should be recording zero or more observations which are made of a feature that has a certain character one of the attributes (rather than the state) of which is present/ absent/misinterpreted, etc. Maybe something like:

<observation sequence="3" basis="specimen" refereence="Stevens in NGF67432"> <feature name="leaf"> <character name="margin" value="serrate" state="present"/> </feature> </observation> <observation sequence="4" basis="literature" reference="Stevens 1998a"> etc...

or maybe it would be better to invert it and define a feature up front and make one or more observations about it:

<feature name="leaf"> <character name="margin"> <observation value="serrate" modification="obscurely" state="present" basis="specimen" reference="Stevens in NGF67432"/> <observation ..... /> <observation ..... /> </character> </feature>

There are numberous ways to moddel this sort of stuff, and has been repeatedly pointed out there is no right way to do it, there are only ways. The challenge is to find one that is functional, comprehensive, flexible, extensible, pragmatic and elegant. And one that we can all agree on...

Probably getting old.

as are we all... and we have to get this damn thing working before our use-by dates are up... :)

jim