Overview:

The FIS is a fully-functional geographically-registered, relational database of distribution and descriptive data on Victorian plants. It contains nearly 1.8 millions records of over 7000 species, sub-species, varieties, forms, hybrids and undescribed taxa of plants (vascular and non-vascular) from over 240,000 survey or collection sites.  Data have been gathered from ecological surveys carried out by DSE, herbarium specimens, professional botanists outside of DSE, competent field naturalists and the botanical literature.

The system operates on Microsoft Windows Vista, XP, 2000, NT and 98 in a standalone or network environment and can be run in read-only, partially editable or fully editable modes.

The relational database consists of six main components each with a number of sub-components:

Species List: A coded taxonomic species list with a range of lookup files.  The species list contains over 70 fields which can be used to characterise each species.  The characters can be used to distinguish such features as conservation status at state and national level, general appearance, flower type and colour, flower times, fruit type, leaf shape and size, uses to Koories and Europeans and many others.  
Species Descriptions: For each species there is concise description which is as much as possible in plain English with a few technical terms as is practical without trivialising the text.  For all technical terms there is an on-line glossary .
Species Photographs: For 3100 of the vascular plant species there are digital colour photographs.  For many species there are several photographs depicting the whole plant, flowers, fruit, leaves and other characteristic features.
Survey or Collection Sites: A series of uniquely identified, geographically located and dated recording or collection sites.  Each site may contain information on the locality reliability, the collector, the altitude etc.
Species in Sites: A list of all species recorded from each site.  This list is linked to the main species list, the descriptive text and the photographs by the unique species code.
Maps: A series of geographically-registered maps, of varying resolution from 1:1,000,000 to 1:100,000, upon which distribution data can be superimposed or from which regional searches for species can be executed.

The Flora Information System is managed by the Information Services Section (ISS) of the Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment. 

The botanical nomenclature is kept up to date by the staff of ISS on advice from the Royal Botanic Gardens. The conservation status of each species within Victoria (rare, vulnerable, endangered, extinct) is determined by ISS staff in consultation with other professional botanists while the conservation status within Australia follows the list from the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act.

All distribution data within the FIS has passed through three validation tests before incorporation. Data that fails any of the tests is withheld from the FIS until it has been checked and amended.

FIS Availability: The FIS may be purchased from Viridans provided a data-sharing agreement has been entered into with the Department of Sustainability and Environment.  The cost will depend upon the number licenses required, training etc.

Data-sharing Agreements: The Department of Sustainability and Environment has standard data-sharing agreements for access to both the FIS and VFD.

Information Services Section
Department of Sustainability and Environment
2/8 Nicholson Street 
East Melbourne, Victoria 3002

Email: biodiversity.info@dse.vic.gov.au