Seed flora of La Perouse Bay, Manitoba, Canada: a DELTA database of morphological and ecological characters

An identification database for seeds in coastal habitats at La Perouse Bay, Manitoba, Canada, was developed using the DELTA (DEscriptive Language for Taxonomy) format and the program INTKEY. The database should be applicable throughout the coastal lowlands of the Hudson Bay and dames Bay regions as similar plant assemblages are present. The database, based upon morphologic al characteristics and also incorporating ecological information, was used to identify seed specimens found in soil cores and seed traps. The most use ful characters for identifying seeds were seed length, seed width, and seed shape. The database is available on the World Wide Web at http://prod.libr ary. utoronto.ca/polyclave/. The seed flora is also documented in the form of a checklist, the first one published for the La Perouse Bay region; this checklist is also applicable to other coastal areas in the Hudson Bay lowl ands.