package the right way?

Hello,

I've been a user of LaTeX for many years and am looking at doing
something a bit more structured than I have in the past and want to
see if I'm thinking about things correctly.

I'm compiling a bunch of notes I have on various plants. For each
species, I'll have things listed like scientific name, common name(s),
leaf type, leaf shape, etc. I hope to grow the # of species to a
moderately large number over several years but want to maintain
consistent formatting.

So, is the right approach here to create a new package, say "plants"
and for each chapter or section in my notes I'd have something like:

\begin{species}{Acer negundo}

% list of common names
\cname{boxelder}
\cname{ashleaf maple}
\cname{Manitoba maple}

% list of identifying attributes. Not all may be listed
\leaftype{pinnately compound}
\leafmargin{lobed}
\leafscar{.....}
\stipularscar{....}
\description{\species\ is a species of maple native to North
America. More detailed description here}

\end{species}


Then my species package would spit out all the information in the
order and formatting I want.

Is this the "right" way or best practices way to go about this (write
a package and define a new environment to let me identify data as
being of a particular type)? If not, is there a better way? Any good
pointers to a nice "starter" package to look at to learn from?

My goal is to spend time on compiling the information and not a lot of
time reformatting things manually to maintain consistency.

Thanks
-Dan
.

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