A visual identification key to Orchidaceae of Korea

Species identification is a fundamental and routine process in plant systematics, and linguistic-based dichotomous keys are widely used in the identification process. Recently, novel tools for species identification have been developed to improve the accuracy, ease to use, and accessibility related to these tasks for a broad range of users given the advances in information and communications technology. A visual identification key is such an approach, in which couplets consist of images of plants or a part of a plant instead of botanical terminology. We developed a visual identification key for 101 taxa of Orchidaceae in Korea and evaluated its performance. It uses short statements for image couplets to avoid misinterpretations by users. The key at the initial steps (couplets) uses relatively easy characters that can be determined with the naked eye. The final steps of the visual key provide images of species and information about distributions and flowering times to determine the species that best fit the available information. The number of steps required to identify a species varies, ranging from three to ten with an average of 4.5. A performance test with senior college students showed that species were accurately identified using the visual key at a rate significantly higher than when using a linguistic-based dichotomous key and a color manual. The findings presented here suggest that the proposed visual identification key is a useful tool for the teaching of biodiversity at schools, for the monitoring of ecosystems by citizens, and in other areas that require rapid, easy, and accurate identifications of species.