Annotated checklist of vascular flora, Colorado National Monument

Hogan, Tim; Lederer, Nan; Fertig, Walter

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 Colorado National Monument. This entailed a thorough review of existing literature, re-examination of specimens from the Colorado National Monument herbarium and other state and national museum collections, and additional field work to corroborate unverified species reports and locate new species. Based on this study, 467 vascular plant taxa have been confirmed or reliably reported as occuring in the monument (414 are known from validated herbarium specimens and 53 from unvouchered literature reports). Another 46 species formerly considered part of the monument flora have now been shown to be falsely reported. The current flora of Colorado National Monument represents about 15% of the known flora of Colorado, and 25% of the flora of the Colorado Plateau ecoregion within Colorado. Although no plant taxa are listed as threatened or endangered, at least 20 are considered species of concern by the state’s natural heritage program. Introduced plants make up 14% of the monument flora (66 species), of which 15 species are considered noxious weeds by the State of Colorado. Further surveys in Colorado National Monument are likely to find additional new species (at least 296 taxa are known from similar habitats outside the monument boundary), especially among late-flowering, weedy, or wetland taxa. (from report)

Annotated checklist of vascular flora, Colorado National Monument

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