Surfer (browser) woes

I call the “Browser” the Surfer, because that is what we requested to help us with our IDs. The Browser is just a very watered down version of what we requested, but is still really cool.

Correction: it was cool when it worked. It is now is travesty.

This is to document a few of these issues, as the Ispottestreport does not include pictures and thus cannot display some of the problems.

THE SURFER IS USELESS FOR LARGER GENERA
(Surely the larger genera are the ones for which the Surfer should be most useful?
It only shows 24 species max, even if the genus has hundreds of species.

I wanted to ID a Romulea. Someone posted one on iSpot which was probably a common species, so the surfer is the logical place to go. She had already identified it as a Frutang, so.
click on the genus name and we get to the TAXONOMY tab of the Dictionary page.

Now it should be immediately apparent, that Romulea is not a genus to be scoffed at. But we want to go to the surfer, so we will go down to the bottom and look for the Blue “Switch to Romulea in species browser” Button.
Alas:

Where is the button?
In fact, none of the southern African genera (unless they have subgenera) can be seen on the surfer. A ridiculous state of affairs.
So how does one see them? One has to Go Up in the dictionary to the Tribe level. Click on Ixiaeae -

There we are: Switch to Ixieae in species browser
Well click it and see:

So Gladiolus and all looks fine,
But what about Romulea?

So 24 species shown and no button to see the rest!
Why not? Is the surfer not supposed to show all the species?
Note that the same is true for the next genus Ixia
In fact, of the genera shown:
Gladiolus has subgenera and sections so is sort of OK (but you cannot see all the species in the sections)
Babiana has 101 species (in 863 observations) but the surfer only shows 24
Geissorhiza has sections so is sort of OK (but you cannot see all the species in the sections)
Romulea has 114 species but the surfer only shows 24
Ixia has 113 species (in 352 observations) but the surfer only shows 24.
Hesperantha has 88 species but the surfer only shows 24.
Tritonia has 47 species but the surfer only shows 24 (I speak of Tritonia § and exclude the nudis (Tritonia is a hemihomonym)
etc.

So how are we supposed to use the Surfer for these larger genera???

Can this bug please be fixed. We want to see all the species on iSpot for our larger genera!!

AT SOME LEVELS THE SURFER CANNOT COUNT.
Species are missing from the surfer

Take the genus Geissorhiza

There are two main sections, and some species unplaced into sections.

These species are:

  • Geissorhiza altimontana (1)
  • Geissorhiza callista (4)
  • Geissorhiza cantharophila (1)
    Geissorhiza demissa (0) Geissorhiza exilis (0) Geissorhiza helmei (0)
  • Geissorhiza lapidosa (1)
  • Geissorhiza melanthera (1)
    Geissorhiza monticola (0) Geissorhiza platystigma (0) Geissorhiza reclinata (0) Geissorhiza rupicola (0) Geissorhiza saxicola (0)
  • Geissorhiza silenoides (1)
  • Geissorhiza sufflava (1)
    Geissorhiza tricolor (0) Geissorhiza uliginosa (0)

So what do we get?

All those species have the message:
“At present there are no examples for this taxon group in Southern Africa.”

But the dictionary clearly shows that there are data and that the species exist.

Please fix this: we want to see species in the surfer if there are data for them on iSpot!