Annotated checklist of vascular flora, Canyonlands National Park

Fertig, Walter; Topp, Sarah; Moran, Mary

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 Canyonlands National Park. This entailed a thorough review of existing literature, re-examination of specimens from the Canyonlands National Park 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, 594 vascular plant taxa have been confirmed or reliably reported as occuring in the park (534 are known from validated herbarium specimens and 60 from unvouchered literature reports). Another 100 species formerly considered part of the park flora have now been shown to be falsely reported. The current flora of Canyonlands National Park represents 16.5% of the known flora of Utah, and 35.1% of the flora of the Colorado Plateau ecoregion within Utah. At least 45 of these species are either listed as sensitive by various agencies or considered species of concern by the state natural heritage program. Introduced plants make up 11.4% of the park flora (68 species), of which only seven species are considered noxious weeds by the State of Utah. Further surveys in Canyonlands National Park are likely to find additional new species (at least 161 are known from similar habitats outside the park boundary), especially among late-flowering, weedy, or wetland taxa. (From Report Abstract)

Annotated checklist of vascular flora, Canyonlands National Park

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