What is smartest and quickest way to create blocks with specific plant names?

[Anonymous]

I'm currently trying to create a large database of blocks of the most common plants we use in our projects. My initial way of going about it was to create blocks for each individual plant species so that when I go to create the plant legend, most of the information is already there. But I quickly discovered that this is quite time consuming. Does anyone have any solutions? I've been exploring block attributes, but still don't quite understand them and am not sure if they are a solution. Please help!

[scot-65]

Database of blocks (I call them "the symbol library") or any other method will be time consuming. However, once you are there, you are there.

Attributed blocks is the old favorite - tried and true, but the block name itself would eliminate the need of attributes, unless, for example, you plan to use the attribute to determine the size of the plant which, can also be determined by the scale of the block itself. A yellow daisy verses a white daisy would be useful as a displayed attribute.

The other method I can think of would be dynamic blocks (with a lookup). This way plant (sub)species can be grouped together as one large block and the library of blocks would thus be reduced. Believe it or not, two individual blocks verses one dynamic block of the same two objects inside showed the dynamic block as the winner regarding file size (even when RASTERPREVIEW is off).

Not knowing plant species myself, I'll use an example of something else:
Instead of having a block of a gray squirrel and a block of a red squirrel, create a dynamic block with both and toggle the visibility between the two with a lookup. Let's not get into dogs or cats, however...

Tying a visibility into a lookup will be your learning curve.

???

[3wood]

Why you reckon using individual blocks is time consuming? In which step you feel hard to complete? There must be some easy way to do it, but you need to be more specific.