Online 'encyclopaedia' of Malta's wild plants

When one googles "wild plants" or "flora Malta", the first site to come up is www.maltawildplants.com, a Maltese online database of the wild plants growing in Malta and Gozo.

The site is the brainchild and creation of Stephen Mifsud of Sta Venera, a project he has been working on since 2002.

Mr Mifsud said, in an interview, that his love for wildlife started when he was a young boy who used to enjoy exploring Wied Blandun when his family lived in Paola. He used to be mesmerised by the various insects in their habitat and his appreciation for nature grew as he became older.

In 1999, when the internet was not yet so popular in Malta, he started dreaming of owning a website to describe the wild flowering plants which gave him so much pleasure but which very few other people noticed, let alone appreciated.

Through his project, he wanted to generate awareness among the public for better appreciation of this heritage. Only in that way could this natural habitat be protected, he argued.

He embarked on his mammoth task in 2002 when digital cameras became widely available making the cost of photography affordable. By that time he had started designing the site - and it has now grown to some 200 web pages and 2,800 photos.

Mr Mifsud said there are 700 to 800 indigenous plants in Malta, of which about 25 are endemic. Additionally, there are some 200 other plants known as aliens, which originated in other countries and remained on the Maltese islands for decades and centuries. He has inputted online about 110, most of which are native.

Mr Mifsud said he started off with the most common, such as red poppies, crown daisy and the alien wood cape sorrel haxixa ngliza, which had been brought to Malta by a British lady from Cape Town, in South Africa. This seedless plant had been placed at Argotti but, it spread all over Malta and Gozo in 200 years.

The website, which continues to grow, is visited regularly by an international community, including many botanists, who leave comments and congratulatory remarks. Web statistics for maltawildplants give a visit count of 20,000 per month.

The aim of the site, Mr Mifsud said, is to make people aware of the beauty of wild plants in Malta, especially, since books on this topic are few and far between. This does not mean that Malta's floral heritage is sparse, he stressed. On the contrary, compared to other countries, Malta has a very rich biodiversity.

"But, unfortunately, it is not being cared for and it is being destroyed through a number of factors including construction, which is taking over a lot of the Maltese countryside, pollution and bird trapping."

For example, Mr Mifsud pointed out, Malta's 45 to 50 different types of orchids seen in the early 20th century now numbered about 35.

Mr Mifsud said that during his field research, he located a few species that were believed to be extinct. These included the Star of Bethlehem (ornithogalum divergens) and the wild asparagus (asparagus stipularis). The last unconfirmed recording of the latter was about 80 years ago.

It takes Mr Mifsud about a week to input all the data on each plant. He is able to dedicate the amount of time he currently does to the project only because he and his wife decided that he should be the one to take parental leave to take care of their daughter.

He explained that when he decides on a plant to input, the first thing he does is identify its name. This was usually very easy but more time is needed for the accurate identification of less common plants. This involves researching reference books, internet sites and consultation.

Once the species is identified, Mr Mifsud looks for other details, such as the Maltese and English names, synonyms, Latin name derivation, botanical data, plant description, flowering time, habitat and much more.

When all that is ready, Mr Mifsud photographs the plant as a whole and in detail - leaves, fruit, flowers and seeds, in its habitat. He also photographs its habitat and related fauna, such as common habitant insects or pollinators. This entails a number of trips at different times of the year.

Parts of the plant are collected for digital scanning to produce high-resolution images. Certain parts, such as tiny seeds and pollen, are photographed under a microscope. Photos are then edited, html coded and captioned.

To make a plant profile interesting, Mr Mifsud tries to find curious information on the plant. This can include medicinal properties, history, propagation and cultivation notes, legends and myths as well as personal observations and comments. All sources of information are referenced.

At the end of each profile, there is an online form where individuals and visitors can submit additional information about that plant.

The site also includes a message board, a glossary of botanical terms, references and bibliography, five indexes, an internal search engine and a flowering time chart.

After working on the site for free for five years, Mr Mifsud is now seeking sponsorships to help him get along. Two sponsors have already come forward: The Strickland Foundation and MiddleSea Insurance.

Mr Mifsud said he needs such sponsorships in order to be able to keep his project up to date and to ensure that access to the website is free, especially the gallery exposing the beauty of Maltese wild plants, because this could result in special interest visits to the Maltese islands in winter and spring.

Mr Mifsud holds a university diploma in agriculture.

The website won the Actualidad 21 century international award in 2005.