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We're Back After COVID-19 Setbacks

April 3rd, 2020 by Alex Zorach

You may have noticed an absence of blog and social media activity over the past several weeks.

A few weeks ago, I came down with a mysterious illness that I strongly suspect to be COVID-19. Although it was quite scary, I am recovering thoroughly. During this time, I also began coaching several of my friends who were also experiencing symptoms, some of them more serious cases than mine.

Between this and the additional stressors of the social isolation and changes to our society, I have put less time into working on bplant.org. However, I still did make some significant progress, I just have not been publishing updates on the results, because managing social media accounts can often be just as time-consuming as developing and maintaining the site itself. Rather than let the site's content suffer, I kept working on the site and scaled back my time put into social media.

I am feeling much better now and am back to having more time to work on the site. One good thing about the crisis we are in is that it doesn't affect my ability to work on the website at all, nor does it affect my ability to be out alone in nature working with plants, observing and photographing them in ways that synergize with my work on the site.
This photo shows a table mountain pine (Pinus pungens), a pine endemic to the Appalachians. This photo is located in the Southern Crystalline Ridges and Mountains ecoregion of the Blue Ridge. Photo © CK Kelly, CC BY 4.0, Source.

Update on Recent Progress

Some major progress over the past couple months includes completion of ecoregion articles for the following states:We also have added images to some of these articles, although many of them still need images. You can read about our search for ecoregion photos in our previous blog post. We've already begun work on Wisconsin, Illinois, Kentucky, and North Carolina.

We also continue to add new plant articles. Some of the latest:These three articles are directly related to our completion of ecoregion articles in Michigan (where jack oak and northern white-cedar are key components of the forests) and Virginia and West Virginia (where table-mountain pine can be found in the Appalachians.) We have prioritized completing plant articles that are interlinked with our ecoregion articles.

And we have one new plant comparison guide:This is just a selection of highlights of the work we have completed in recent months. We also did a ton of expansion and improvement to existing articles.

Expect More Activity & Communication Again!

You can expect things to return to the normal activity level shortly!

Archive of All Blogs

Range Map & Taxonomic Update Progress, January 31st, 2024

Giving Thanks To Everyone We Rely On, November 22nd, 2023

Thinking More Deeply About Habitat, April 5th, 2023

2022 Year-End Summary: Successes & New Goals, February 15th, 2023

New Databases Linked: Flora of North America & NatureServe Explorer, November 11th, 2022

All Range Maps 2nd Generation, Taxonomic Updates, & Fundraising Goal Met!, September 29th, 2022

More Range Map Improvements, POWO Interlinking, And Notes Fields, June 7th, 2022

Ecoregion-Based Plant Lists and Search, March 30th, 2022

Progress Updates on Range Maps and More, February 10th, 2022

The Vision for bplant.org, December 9th, 2021

New Server: Software & Hardware, August 30th, 2021

More & Improved Plant Range Maps, July 19th, 2021

A Control Section for Invasive Plants, April 15th, 2021

Progress Bars & State Ecoregion Legends, March 11th, 2021

Our 2020 Achievements, February 9th, 2021

Interlinking Databases for Plant Research, November 11th, 2020

A New Homepage, Highlighting Our Articles, July 29th, 2020

A False Recovery, But North Carolina's Ecoregions are Complete!, June 9th, 2020

We're Back After COVID-19 Setbacks, April 3rd, 2020

Help Us Find Ecoregion Photos, February 27th, 2020

What We Achieved in 2019, December 30th, 2019

Plant Comparison and ID Guides, October 30th, 2019

We Are Now Accepting Donations, October 14th, 2019

US State Ecoregion Maps, New Footer, Ecoregion Article Progress, and References, September 19th, 2019

Tentative Range Maps of Native Plants, August 12th, 2019

Ecoregion Locator and Interactive Maps, July 10th, 2019

Using Ecoregions Over Political Boundaries, May 13th, 2019

How We Handle Wild vs Cultivated Plants, April 16th, 2019

A Blog To Keep People Updated On Our Progress, April 8th, 2019

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