open-delta 1.02

This software is substantially derived from the DELTA software authored by M.J Dallwitz, T.A. Paine and E.J Zurcher. The DELTA suite is a excellent tool for systematic zoology and botany, inventory, and conservation. The DELTA suite can be used to produce natural-language descriptions, conventional or interactive keys, cladistic or phenetic classifications, and information-retrieval systems. The facilities available include the generation and typesetting of descriptions and conventional keys, conversion of DELTA data for use by classification programs, and the construction of Intkey packages for interactive identification and information retrieval. The DELTA data can easily be converted to the forms required by programs for phylogenetic analysis, e.g. Paup, Hennig86, and MacClade. The characters and taxa required for these analyses can be selected from the full data set. Numeric characters, which cannot be handled by these programs, are converted to multistate characters. Printed descriptions can be generated to facilitate checking of the data, and Intkey can be used for further data checking, and for finding differences, similarities, and correlations among the taxa.