Annotated checklist of vascular flora, Fossil Butte National Monument

Fertig, Walter; Kyte, Clay

In 2005–2006, the National Park Service’s Northern Colorado Plateau Network received funding to develop a revised checklist of the vascular plant flora of Fossil Butte National Monument. This entailed a thorough review of existing literature, re-examination of specimens from the Fossil Butte National Monument herbarium and other state and national museum collections, and additional field work to corroborate unverified species reports or locate new species. Based on this study, 546 vascular plant taxa have been confirmed or reliably reported as occuring in the monument (509 are known from validated herbarium specimens and 37 from unvouchered literature reports). Another 68 species formerly considered part of the monument flora have now been shown to be falsely reported. The current flora of Fossil Butte National Monument represents about 19.5% of the known flora of Wyoming, and 36.7% of the flora of the Wyoming Basins ecoregion within Wyoming. At least eight of these taxa are considered species of concern by the state natural heritage program. Introduced plants make up 13.2% of the monument flora (72 species), of which 10 species are considered noxious weeds by the State of Wyoming. Further surveys in Fossil Butte National Monument are likely to find additional new species (114 are known from similar habitats outside the monument boundary), especially among late-season flowering, weedy, or wetland taxa.(from Report Abstract)

Annotated checklist of vascular flora, Fossil Butte National Monument

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