Sepal

Add and edit accessions

The accession form field by field, and the tabs that open once the record exists.

An accession is one arrival of one taxon. This page describes the accession form field by field and the tabs that open once a record exists. Your first week walks through creating the first one step by step.

Creating, editing, and deleting an accession needs the editor or admin role. A reader who opens an accession sees a read-only page that holds its panel, without the form or the tabs.

Create an accession

Select Accessions in the sidebar, then select New accession. Fill in the form and select Save. Sepal requires a Code and a Taxon. Every other field is optional, and you can fill it in later.

Identity

Code is your garden’s accession number, and it has to be unique. On a new accession the field is already filled in with the next code in your garden’s sequence. By default that is the year and a four-digit serial number, such as 2026.0001. You can keep the suggestion or type your own. If someone else takes the code before you save, select the refresh icon beside the field to fetch the next one.

An admin can change the code format, and can set Sepal to reject codes that do not fit it. With that setting on, Sepal refuses a new code that does not fit and shows one that does. When you edit an existing accession, Sepal warns you instead of refusing, and Save it anyway keeps the code you typed.

Taxon is the botanical name of the accession. Start typing a name and select one of the results. The field searches the taxa your instance holds, so you rarely have to add a name yourself. On a new accession, choosing a cultivar, a Group, or a grex sets Provenance Type to Cultivated, unless you have already set it yourself.

ID Qualifier and ID Qualifier Rank record how confident the identification is. They are covered in Qualify an uncertain identification below.

Provenance

Provenance records how the plant came to be where it is. Every field in this section is optional.

Provenance Type takes one of Wild, Cultivated, Not wild, Purchase, and Insufficient data. The glossary lists what each value means.

Wild Provenance Status takes one of Wild native, Wild non native, Cultivated native, Cultivated, Not wild, Purchase, and Insufficient data. Set it only for wild-collected material. Sepal does not clear it when you change the provenance type, so check it if you revise a record.

Supplier is the nursery, garden, or collector the plant came from. The field points at a contact, and you search it the same way you search for a taxon.

Placement

Intended location is the location the material is meant to go into before anything is planted. Leave it empty until the bed is decided.

Setting it puts the accession in the location’s Awaiting planting section, where a Plant here link opens the material form with the accession already filled in. The accession leaves that section as soon as it has material in the location it was intended for.

Receipt

Date Received is the day the plant reached you. Date Accessioned is the day you entered it in the collection. Both take a full date, and neither accepts a date in the future.

Received as records the form the plant arrived in, such as Seed, Bulb, or Rooted cutting. Quantity received records how many arrived. Both describe the arrival, so they stay as you recorded them when the material is later planted, divided, or lost.

Qualify an uncertain identification

When the name on the label is not certain, record a qualifier with it.

  1. Open the accession and stay on the General tab.
  2. Under Identity, set ID Qualifier to one of aff, cf, forsan, incorrect, near, and questionable.
  3. Set ID Qualifier Rank to the rank the doubt applies to. The values are Below family, Family, Genus, Species, First infraspecific epithet, Second infraspecific epithet, and Cultivar.
  4. Select Save.

Both fields are optional and independent of each other. Sepal stores the qualifier beside the name and does not change the name, so the accession still matches a search for the taxon you recorded.

Edit an accession

Open the accession from the Accessions list. The General tab holds the same form you filled in when you created the record. Change what you need and select Save, or select Cancel to reload the record as it was.

Every save writes an activity, so the Activity section of the panel shows who changed the record and when.

Delete an accession

  1. Open the accession.
  2. Select Actions, then select Delete.
  3. Read the confirmation and select Delete.

Sepal refuses to delete an accession that still has material, or that a propagation names as its parent. The dialog lists what is in the way, and you delete or move those records first. Deleting an accession also removes its notes, its tags, and its collection data, and it unlinks its media. You cannot undo a delete.

Record wild-collection data

The Collection tab holds the field data behind a wild-collected accession: Collector, Collector’s Number, Collection Date, Habitat, Associated Taxa, Remarks, Country, Province/State, Locality, Latitude, Longitude, Coordinate System, Uncertainty (m), Elevation (m), and Elevation Accuracy (m).

The tab is available when Provenance Type is Wild, and it stays available on any accession that already has collection data on it. On an accession with neither, the tab is disabled and reads Available when provenance is wild collected.

Add a note

A note is free text on the record. Use one for anything the form has no field for.

  1. Open the accession and select the Notes tab.
  2. Type the text in Note.
  3. Select Add note.

The note appears in the list below the form with the time it was written and the email address of whoever wrote it. Select Edit on a note to change it, or Delete to remove it. Sepal asks Delete this note? before it removes one. The three most recent notes also appear in the Notes section of the panel, so a reader can see them too.

Add a tag

A tag is a label you attach to records so that you can find them together.

  1. Open the accession and select the Tags tab.
  2. Type a name in Tag. The field suggests the tags that already exist.
  3. Select Add.

A name that matches an existing tag links that tag. A name that matches nothing creates the tag and then links it. To take one off, select the remove icon on the tag and confirm.

Once an accession is tagged, tag: filters the Accessions list by it.

tag:rescue