About
One canonical record per cultivar — built across the industry.
We publish the truth about each cultivar.
Plantaerium is a curated plant reference database from Realmdrop. We consolidate cultivar identity, attributes, and provenance from across the industry into a clean, deduplicated record. We don't sell plants, hold inventory, or publish prices.
We store
- Botanical identity — genus, species, cultivar, patent, trade name, aliases
- Physical attributes — mature size, hardiness zones, bloom and foliage colors
- Growing conditions — light, soil moisture, growth habit
- Provenance — which sources contributed which fields
- Reference imagery — content-hashed, not URL-tracked
We don't store
- PricesThey drift weekly and aren't reliable as reference data.
- Inventory or stock countsThat belongs to suppliers who actually move plants.
- SKUs or per-supplier listings on the public siteThe public reference is by cultivar, not by SKU.
- Personal data on visitors or growersBrowsing the catalog should never require an account.
How a record is built
Every public-facing record passes through four layers. Each layer is conservative — supplier-side changes that conflict with your view never silently overwrite it.
- Layer 1
Bronze
Raw, last-known state per source. Updated on every scrape; never deleted on absence alone.
- Layer 2
Silver
System-merged canonical record per cultivar. Field-level provenance preserved — you can see exactly which source contributed what.
- Layer 3
Gold
Silver plus our editorial overrides for fields where supplier data conflicts or is incomplete.
- Layer 4
White
Gold plus per-tenant overrides — your private corrections layered on top of ours.
How we curate
Software does the merging. People keep it honest.
Match across sources
A trigram resolver scores supplier listings against the canonical entity index. High-confidence matches auto-link; the rest queue for review.
Consolidate to silver
Field-by-field merge with deterministic precedence (longest description wins; tightest hardiness range wins; etc.) plus full source attribution.
Override where it matters
A curator reviews each entity surfaced by the queue or QA reports; conflicts get a Gold override with a written reason.
Curation FAQ
Questions specifiers and integrators ask the most.
How often is the catalog updated?
Each supplier is scraped on a per-source schedule (most weekly, some daily). Silver consolidation runs after every supplier finishes; Gold edits land instantly. The home page shows the latest update timestamp.
What happens when two suppliers disagree?
The silver consolidator picks deterministically per field — for example, the longest description wins, the tightest hardiness range wins. When the result is wrong, a curator opens a Gold override and the rule's reasoning is captured in our audit log.
Are trade names and cultivar codes resolved together?
Yes. "Tres Amigos® (Mincautri)" and the bare 'Mincautri' clone always merge into one canonical entity, with the trade name as the consumer-facing title.
Can I correct or contribute to a record?
Subscribers in our white tier can layer their own per-tenant overrides without affecting the public record. For cross-the-board corrections, drop us a note via the contact page — we treat well-supported corrections seriously.
Where do you source reference imagery from?
Each image is content-hashed at ingest, not URL-tracked. We license imagery from supplier catalogs that allow it; curators can pin or unpin images per cultivar to keep the gallery on-message.
Where to next?
Browse the catalog, look at the API surface, or talk to us about access.