A vegetative key to the canopy trees of American Samoa, with notes on additional morphological and reproductive characters
Webb E. A vegetative key to the canopy trees of American Samoa, with notes on additional morphological and reproductive characters. Department of Marine and Wildlife Resources. Pago Pago, AS
A dichotomous key to 56 trees of Tutuila, American Samoa, based on vegetative (non-reproductive) characters only. Also provided is additional characteristics of flower/fruit morphology, habitat identification the tree in question. The high species diversity of the tree flora in tropical forests, although magnificent, is problematic for systematic treatments of ecological and evolutionary processes. Although great strides are being taken to botanically inventory even the most remote regions of the tropics (e.g. Wright et al. 1997), lack of secure tree identifications limits the scope of ecological studies relying thereon. Usually, identification keys rely on both vegetative and reproductive data to differentiate among species; however, it is often impossible to be present during phenological periods of all trees in a plot. Moreover, the tall physiognomy of most tropical trees makes remote identification based on minute floral characteristics difficult. An optimal situation would be to identiy trees based on vegetative and physiognomic characteristics alone. Indeed, some notable works have added considerably to our ability to classify plants to family or genus based on vegetative characters (e.g. Gentry 1993, Keller 1996). The identification of tropical plants based on vegetative morphology, while clearly a challenging proposition, allows researchers to confidently ascertain taxonomic composition of tropical habitats during any time of the year.