It’s a “wiki” (from the Hawaiian word for “quick”), which is essentially a way for the web site manager(s) to manage and edit the web-site from any location without requiring any software other than a web browser.

For you the reader, it’s just like a normal web site to use. If you click on a highlighted link, you will usually open a new page (normally in the same tab of the same browser window, replacing the current page).

The web browser will show some information in a border in a slightly darker shade of green, outside the main content of the page. The information in the border will always be arranged in the same way, whichever page you are viewing. A list of the main sections of the wiki always appears, labelled “On other pages”, normally in a “side bar” on the left, which you can use to move quickly to another part of the wiki. The main content of the page appears in the large panel in a slightly lighter shade of green. A “Table of Contents” for a page may appear at the top right of the main panel when the page becomes complicated enough to warrant one.

Note that the layout of the pages is adjusted automatically when using small devices such as mobile phones and tablets with small screens. For example, if the screen is too narrow to show the side bar, it is removed and a link to open it appears near the top of the page. Similarly, the table of contents may be replaced by a link to it. If the text is too small for comfortable reading,

• On a computer with a keyboard, you can enlarge the text by holding the Ctrl key down and pressing the plus (+) key, several times if need be, or shrink it using the minus (-) key, as commonly used with many other web sites.
• On a tablet or phone, you probably already know how to enlarge things by using two fingers to stretch the page.

There are several aids to finding your way around.

• There is a list of commonly visited Other pages in a column on the left
• Below the SABG logo and heading and above the main part of the page you will see:
  • “You are here:” followed by a hierarchical list showing the way the pages are organised into levels (a bit like chapters, sections and pages in a book): the first page is the SABG home page, the last is the page you are currently on, and any pages in between show how the pages are arranged in groups, normally to group related pages together; you will not necessarily have visited all of these.
  • “Trace:” followed by a list of the titles of the past few pages you have visited, making it easy to go back to a previously visited page (like dropping breadcrumbs in a forest). This is similar to the way your web browser may provide a way to step back to previously visited pages.
• In all cases, you can click on a page title to go straight to that page.

• On a long page, there may be a table of contents at the top right, listing the sections within the currently displayed page.
• If you don’t know where to look for something, there are two useful aids at the top right of the page:
  • type a relevant word in the Search box, or
  • click on the “Sitemap”, which will give you a hierarchical list of all the pages.

Like ordinary web pages, every page has a title, which appears at the top of the panel, and also in some web browsers in the title bar of the browser window. Our wiki pages also have a short name, which appears in the little tab at the top right-hand corner of the main panel, along with the short names of the “parent” pages in the hierarchy ¹⁾, which is effectively an abbreviation of the “You are here” page hierarchy. You do not really have to study this hierarchy in order to use the wiki.

The pages are arranged in hierarchically nested groups, so that each page has a “parent” page at the level above and “sibling” pages at the same level. This is similar to the hierarchical classification of plants. So you can imagine, and one day perhaps we will have

• a main page for all South African bulbs, e.g. Taxa
• grouped under that, a page for each family, e.g. Iridaceae
• under the Iridaceae page, a page for every genus, e.g. Moraea
• under the Moraea page, a page for every species, e.g. Moraea ciliata.

(Actually, we do not plan anything so ambitious. The Pacific Bulb Society already has something along these lines, including pages for Iridaceae and Moraea.)

[Coming soon!]

Some pages may not be visible unless you log on with an appropriate account. Most pages may be viewed and comments added to the Discussion by anyone. Some pages may require you to log in before you can edit them or create new pages ²⁾

Enjoy!