---
{
  "id": "about",
  "title": "About this guide",
  "source_ids": [
    "S01",
    "S27",
    "ST-pattern"
  ],
  "description": "About this guide for the Colorado Plants & Practical Care",
  "source": "content/pages/about.md"
}
---

# About this guide

Every plant page is labeled **Still researching this plant**, with visible evidence gaps and open questions in its agent notes. This allows useful, sourced working profiles to be published while uncertain taxonomy, pet effects and expert review remain explicit.

This independent guide covers **154 plant profiles** relevant to Colorado yards, gardens, paths and disturbed land. It separates native volunteers, xeriscape spreaders and invasive and common weeds, while giving each plant dedicated sections for people, dogs and cats, other animals, and surrounding vegetation.

“Weed” describes a plant growing where someone does not want it. It does not erase that plant’s ecological value. Colorado native communities also differ across elevation, exposure and climate. A garden choice for one site may not fit another. [CSU Extension: Native Plants](https://extension.colostate.edu/resource/native-plants/).

The [coverage checklist](https://denson.github.io/colorado-weed-field-guide/coverage/) maps all **82 entries** in Colorado’s reviewed A, B and C lists to illustrated profiles. Additional profiles cover common weeds, native hazards and xeriscape spreaders. [Biggest concerns](https://denson.github.io/colorado-weed-field-guide/biggest-concerns/) offers a practical starting point. Coverage of a listing includes documented taxonomic limits; it is not a claim that every subspecies or hybrid has been independently confirmed.

## How the evidence is handled

Profiles are AI-assisted editorial syntheses of linked Extension, government, poison-control and veterinary sources. **Independent botanical and veterinary expert review is pending.** This is a selected catalog, not a complete flora, poison database or identification key.

Each factual section links its sources. The additional Markdown notes distinguish species-level findings, genus-level evidence, animal-group evidence, physical-risk inferences and unresolved questions. Source publication dates, retrieval dates and page revision times are kept separate.

Every plant has three distinct, source-identified photographs. Photographer credits and licenses appear beside the photos. We do not claim a photograph was taken in Colorado unless its source documents that location. Images are reference examples, not independent determinations of a visitor’s plant.

## Built for people and their assistants

The site follows the published [Stoagen pattern](https://stoagen.com/pattern/index.md): readable static pages, a Markdown mirror with additional evidence notes, and visible links for agents. This is an independent implementation. All substantive profile content is available without JavaScript or a sign-in.

The source project lives in [GitHub](https://github.com/denson/colorado-weed-field-guide). Ordinary HTML, Markdown, JSON, CSS and image files can be served by another static host. No OpenAI hosting runtime is required.

## Corrections and reuse

Propose a correction through the [GitHub repository](https://github.com/denson/colorado-weed-field-guide), including the scientific name, the claim in question and a supporting source. Source errors, taxonomic changes and new toxicology evidence should be recorded explicitly.

Photo licenses apply individually and are linked with each image. Third-party publications retain their own copyrights; this site paraphrases their facts and links to the originals. No blanket license over those sources or photographs is claimed.

# Appendix for agents

## Editorial record

The first prototype contained 10 plants. The first portable edition expanded to 40 profiles with three photographs each and replaced the hosted application with a portable static build. The next edition reached 119 profiles and 357 photographs. The current expansion has 154 profiles and 462 photographs, with every entry in the reviewed A/B/C lists mapped and additional common weeds and native hazards. Profile prose is maintained in Markdown. Provenance records retain the earlier evidence used and document exclusions for common-name mismatches.

Authorship is AI-assisted, for the project owner. Source organizations and photographers are not represented as endorsing this guide. Content revision dates are generated from recorded source revisions and source-file hashes; they are not dates of scientific validation or promises of monitoring.

## Limits

Category membership is navigation. Some native plants also belong in xeriscape gardens. Current legal obligations depend on location; no county instruction is silently generalized to all Colorado. No editorial risk inference asserts allelopathy, clinical toxicity, a safe dose or a measured restoration benefit without evidence.


---
Canonical HTML: https://denson.github.io/colorado-weed-field-guide/about/

Content revised: 2026-09-21T19:48:00Z

Markdown mirror: https://denson.github.io/colorado-weed-field-guide/about/index.md

Text fallback: https://denson.github.io/colorado-weed-field-guide/about/index.md.txt

Agent entry: https://denson.github.io/colorado-weed-field-guide/start.md

Provenance: https://denson.github.io/colorado-weed-field-guide/provenance.json