The New Zealand Plant Conservation Network

Under brief description, 'seeds' are mentioned. = 'spores' ?

Hilarious. I'll fix that when I can but also hasten to point out NOT GUILTY. I didn't do the brief descriptions for most fact sheets they were done by someone else.

I'll put my hand up for that one. It was a decision of technical accuracy vs ease of understanding to a wide audience and seed has a very wide definition and is easily understood. My brief was to provide simple and easy to understand (not easy to summarise a tree in 40 words!)

You'll find several of the Cyathaceae and Dicksoniaceae brief descriptions use seed rather than spore

I see - as you will know I am no fan of 'dumbing' things down Mike. A spore is not a seed and its better that people learn this fact sooner than later rather than mislead and so potentially confuse them - the mentality of some of the wider committee that we need to 'dumb things' down is doing more harm than it is good. It also begs the question of wondering at what point do we cease - when the science is dumbed down to the point of being meaningless? I have been 'fixing' the brief descriptions as and when I find them. I agree though - summarising a plant description in PC, non-technical - dare I say it - non-scientific - prose is as difficult as trying to summarize Marcel Proust's collected works in three minutes.