With gratitude
Velamen stands on the generosity of the open-science community. The species you search and the care we suggest draw on freely-shared botanical datasets. Here is who we thank — and where to find them.
Powers the species name search
GBIF Secretariat (2023). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei, accessed via GBIF.org. The accepted Orchidaceae species and genera in our type-ahead are drawn from it.
Visit GBIF.orgPowers name matching and synonym resolution behind the scenes
Govaerts, R. (ed.). WCVP: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, facilitated by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (https://powo.science.kew.org/). We use it internally to recognize the orchid names you type and to resolve synonyms to a single accepted species — it provides taxonomy, not the care guidance we show. Imported from the WCVP bulk dataset, published under CC BY 4.0.
Visit Plants of the World OnlinePowers species conservation status, taxonomy, and cross-linking
Wikidata contributors. Wikidata, the free knowledge base (https://www.wikidata.org). We read structured facts — conservation status, taxon synonyms, and the GBIF/Wikipedia cross-references — to enrich species care. Wikidata is released into the public domain (CC0).
Visit Wikidata.orgPowers species microhabitat and substrate guidance
Wikipedia contributors. The English Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. We extract only FACTS from article text — growth form, light exposure, and locality — to derive our own care parameters; no verbatim prose is stored or shown.
Visit WikipediaPowers cultivation guidance (temperature, light, humidity, watering)
Charles & Margaret Baker, Orchid Species Culture (orchidculture.com). We use only the culture sheets the authors offer FREE, and store only extracted facts — climate-derived temperature, light, humidity, and watering — never the verbatim sheet text. Their paid subscription corpus is not used. With gratitude for making these freely available.
Visit orchidculture.comWhere no dataset above covers a species, we may show a last-resort AI care estimate recalled from the model’s training knowledge. These are always cross-checked against the species’ wild-occurrence climate envelope, labelled “unverified,” and marked low-confidence — they never overwrite the evidence-backed guidance from the sources above.
Open data only stays open when it is credited and used well. As our data footprint grows, every new source will be acknowledged here. If you maintain a dataset we use and would like the wording changed, please reach out through the app.