Our Liviiii; Rcsdiincs — Plants 



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Colorado Plateau (L.R. Landrum. Arizona Slate 

 University, and T.J. Ayers. Northern Arizona 

 University, personal eomrnunicalion). 



Although niueh of Colorado is also poorly 

 known, all of Wyoming will have been surveyed 

 by 1998, with recent collection data fully com- 

 puterized (R. Hartman, University of Wyoming, 

 personal communication). 



The Great Plains 



Tlw Flora of tlw Grecit Plains (Great Plains 

 Flora Association 1986) and its associated Atlas 

 of the Flora of the Great Plains (Great Plains 

 Flora Association 1977) are the result of careful 

 study of the region in the I960's and I970"s. 

 The University of Kansas herbarium contains 

 specimens representative of the entire flora: 

 these specimens have been recently annotated 

 by e.vperts. This herbarium, in combination with 

 those at the University of Nebraska, Kansas 

 State University in Manhattan. North Dakota 

 State University in Fargo, and the University of 

 Minnesota (which has specimen data online), 

 probably has fully covered this region and has 

 current, active collecting programs. These 

 herbaria are collaborating to develop a Central 

 United States Plant Inventory Database (CUS- 

 PID). South Dakota and the eastern half of 

 Montana have been undercollected. 



Great Lakes 



Many poorly known and interesting species 

 are restricted to the Great Lakes region, and 

 other typically more northern species occur here 

 (The Nature Conservancy 1994). Recent floras 

 are available or are being prepared for Illinois, 

 Michigan, Minnesota, and Ohio. The floras of 

 Indiana and Wisconsin need to be updated. 

 Information from specimens treated in recent 

 \olumes of the Michigan Flora (Voss 1972) is 

 being entered into a data base, and the Kent 

 State University herbarium is computerizing its 

 collection. 



The Eastern Forest 



The region covered by the eastern forest has 

 been settled longer than any other area in the 

 United States. Habitats here have undergone 

 tremendous alteration and many introduced 

 species now dominate the landscape. These 

 plants should be regulariy inventoried to docu- 

 ment the occurrence and spread of alien species 

 and to monitor the effects of environmental 

 change. For instance, in 1950, 20% of the species 

 in the northeastern United States were non-native 

 (Femald 1950); in 1986, 36% of the flora of New 

 York was non-native (Mitchell 1986). 



Regional, statewide, and local floristic stud- 

 ies and publications are traditional in the 

 Northeast, but the older work is sometimes ta.x- 



onomically and nomenclaturally outdated, and 

 many areas remain inadequately inventoried. 

 Two standard references for the vascular plants 

 of the Northeast are Gray ',v Manual of Botany 

 (Femald 1950) and the recently revised Manual 

 of Vascular Plants of Northeastern United 

 Slates and Adjacent Canada (Gleason and 

 Cronquist 1991). Seymour's (1982) The Flora 

 of New England is also useful. 



Botanists in Maine, Vermont, New 

 Hampshire, Connecticut, and Massachusetts are 

 updating checklists or older floras or preparing 

 new ones. In New York, an active collaborative 

 flora project has produced 10 illustrated install- 

 ments, plus a checklist (Mitchell 1986) and an 

 atlas of county records (New York Flora 

 Association 1990). For Pennsylvania, Rhoads 

 and Klein's ( 1993) recent atlas is available. 



A book on the aquatic plants of northeasteni 

 North America is soon to be published (G.E. 

 Crow. University of New Hampshire, and C.B. 

 Hellquist. North Adams State College. 

 Massachusetts, personal communication). In 

 addition, the Association of Northeastern 

 Herbaria, organized in 1991, is coordinating the 

 preparation of specimen-based electronic data 

 bases and the sharing of data. Specimen data 

 from herbaria at the University of 

 Massachusetts (Amherst), the Buffalo Museum 

 of Science, the New York State Museum, and 

 the University of Maine are partly or complete- 

 ly stored electronically. A large computer-stored 

 data base also exists for Pennsylvania plants. 



The South 



The Manual of the Vascular Plants of Texas 

 (Correll and Johnston 1970) is being updated. 

 A number of regional floras and checklists have 

 been published within the last two decades, but 

 there are no regional floras for the Rolling 

 Plains or the Trans-Pecos areas. Specimen 

 records at the University of Texas at El Paso 

 have been computerized, and type specimens at 

 the University of Texas at Austin are computer- 

 ized and online. 



In general, local floras, checklists, and 

 atlases are more commonly available for south- 

 eastern states than are complete state floras. In 

 the southeast, Alabama, Arkansas, and 

 Mississippi are the most pooriy known, and 

 northern Florida. Georgia, northwestern 

 Louisiana, and eastern Oklahoma need consid- 

 erably more study. In Alabama, in particular, the 

 pooriy collected areas are the Coastal Plain 

 north of Mobile and Baldwin counties, north to 

 the Cumberland Plateau. For overviews, see The 

 Vascular Flora of the Southeastern United 

 States (Radford et al. 1980), of which two of the 

 five projected volumes have been published. A 

 Generic Flora of the Southeastern United States 

 (Wood and Miller 1958-90), which includes 



Fabaceae (Leguniimisae). Haprisii 

 auslrulis. a member of the legume 

 family. 



The fern Acroslicimm danaeifolium. 



The fern Pilyroi'ramma vitlala. 



