Flora of New Zealand Series

Search All records

There are two ways to search all records:

• Enter * into the search bar and press the search button / enter key OR
• Leave the search bar blank and press the search button

Special characters

To search text containing special characters the text must be enclosed in double quotes ("). Special characters includes any of the following set:

? [  ] + - ( ) {  }  ^ ~ *  : /  | ! &

Example:

• "K+"

Full word search using AND

Use a space between words or AND to define an AND search. The space is treated as an AND. AND must be in written in upper case. A record must contain each of the words in the search query that are separated by a space or AND to be a match.

Examples:

• Astelia white
• Astelia AND white

Full word search using OR

A record has to contain only one of these words to be a match. OR must be written in upper case.

Example:

• Astelia OR white

Phrase search

Use double quotes to define a search term that is a phrase. A record must contain the exact phrase to be a match.

Example:

• "berry white" (Returns records that contains the exact string "berry white".)

Negative searches

To omit results containing a specific term a - symbol is added in front of that term. A record must contain any other search terms that are included, but may not contain terms proceeded by the - symbol.

Example:

• berry -white  (Returns records that contain berry but not white.)

Wild card search

The wild card used in this portal is the * symbol. Wild cards can be placed anywhere within your query term. Without a wild card, a word is treated as a full word search. For example, a search for flow will return only results where the word flow is used but a search for flow* will return results for flow, flower, flowering and any other word that starts with flow.

Example:

• bulb* (Find records containing words beginning with bulb.)
• *ella (Find records containing words that end with ella.)
• bulb*ella (Find records with words that start with bulb and end with ella.)

Field limited search

To search within a specific field, the search is proceeded by the field name and a colon. Field names are available here, and must be written with the correct lower and upper cases characters.

Example:

• distribution:Canterbury (Find records that contain Canterbury in the distribution field.)
• distribution:Canterbury AND description:flowers  (Find records that contain Canterbury in the distribution field and flowers in the description field.)

Negative field search

The field limited search can be used prefixed with - to exclude any records with particular text in a particular field.

Example:

• -distribution:Canterbury (Find all records that don't have Canterbury in the distribution field)
• -distribution:* (Find all records without a distribution note specified)

Combing negative and field searches

It is possible to combine negative and context searches, particularly to omit particular subsets of records from the search results.

Example:

• habitat:limestone -distribution:Canterbury (Find records that contain limestone in the habitat field, but that don't have Canterbury in the distribution field)

Proximity Search

A proximity search returns as a match any record where the search terms are within a specified distance of each other. 

Example:

• "berry white"~150 (This returns record where the words berry and white occur within 150 words of each other.)

Complex searches

It is possible to combine the above search syntax in different ways to create complex searches.

Example:

• distribution:"K." OR distribution:Kermadec* (Find all records with K. or starting with Kermadec in the distribution field)

Searchable fields