Final Report. Vascular Plant Species List Project: COLM Herbarium Review and Species List for Colorado National Monument (COLM)

Hogan, Tim; Lederer, Nancy

In the fall of 2005, the authors from the University of Colorado herbarium undertook the Colorado National Monument herbarium review. They brought the entire COLM collection to the University of Colorado (COLO) herbarium in order to access the COLO collection for reference, which included duplicates of many of the NPS vouchers. Prior to initiating the review, the NCPN provided the cooperators with an Excel spreadsheet contining electronic data on each specimen housed at COLM. These data were obtained from the ANCS+ database. Over a three-month period the cooperators examined the 1,023 specimens and annotated them with labels either confirming or correcting the previous identification. Identifications of some COLO specimens were also corrected. When the review was completed, 442 taxa were vouchered for the Monument... INTRODUCTION This project is part of the Northern Colorado Plateau Inventory and Monitoring Network’s (NCPN) ongoing effort to develop verifiable vascular plant species lists for parks in the network. Project Objectives As described in the Cooperative Agreement between NPS and the University of Colorado Herbarium, the overall goals of this project are to: 1) Review and annotate herbarium specimens for COLM. 2) Assist with compilation of NPSpecies database for COLM vascular plant species. 3) Prepare a technical report (per NCPN requirements) documenting project results, including a narrative summary of the history of botanical work at COLM. 4) Develop a narrative describing floristic study/plant collection history for Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park (BLCA) and Curecanti National Recreation Area (CURE). Goals 1 and 2 are discussed below in the METHODS section. Goal 3 is accomplished with this report. Goal 4 was completed with a report entitled “History of Botanical Surveys in Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park and Curecanti National Recreation Area”, submitted to NPS in November, 2005. Nomenclature On the recommendation of NPS botanists, the primary nomenclature used was Weber and Wittmann’s, Colorado Flora: Western Slope [3rd Ed.] (2001), the most commonly used flora in Colorado.