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| Great Plains Flora Association | |
|---|---|
| Name | Great Plains Flora Association |
| Formation | 1986 |
| Headquarters | Kansas |
| Region | Great Plains |
| Leader title | Coordinating committee |
Great Plains Flora Association
The Great Plains Flora Association is a collaborative botanical consortium that produced a comprehensive flora for the North American Great Plains region. It brought together botanists from institutions such as the Missouri Botanical Garden, the University of Kansas, the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, the Field Museum of Natural History, and the New York Botanical Garden to document vascular plants across provinces including Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana. The project interlinks taxonomic work, herbarium research, and field surveys with conservation agencies such as the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the Nature Conservancy.
The consortium grew from coordinated efforts among researchers affiliated with the Flora of North America Association, the Botanical Society of America, and regional herbaria including Harvard University Herbaria, Smithsonian Institution, and the University of Texas Herbarium. It aimed to synthesize treatments for families such as the Poaceae, Asteraceae, Fabaceae, Brassicaceae, and Cyperaceae within the plains physiographic province. The association produced distribution maps, dichotomous keys, and species accounts used by state agencies like the Kansas Biological Survey and conservation programs run by the U.S. National Park Service.
Taxonomic contributors included curators and systematists who worked on genera and families represented in the region: grasses (e.g., Bouteloua, Andropogon, Sporobolus), composites (e.g., Helianthus, Solidago, Ambrosia), legumes (e.g., Astragalus, Desmodium, Vicia), sedges (e.g., Carex, Cyperus), and mustards (e.g., Arabis, Cardamine). Collaborative authorship drew upon specialists from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, the Missouri Department of Conservation, and the Iowa State University Department of Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology. Nomenclatural standards followed the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants and referenced type specimens held at repositories including The New York Botanical Garden Herbarium (NY), Gray Herbarium, and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (K).
Coverage spanned the Interior Plains (North America), the High Plains, and adjacent ecoregions such as the Shortgrass Prairie, Mixed-grass Prairie, and Tallgrass Prairie. Elevational gradients from the Rocky Mountains foothills to the central plains were sampled, encompassing xeric sites in the Panhandle of Texas and mesic riverine corridors along the Missouri River, Arkansas River, and Red River of the North. Habitat types included sandhills near Nebraska Sandhills, saline playas, prairie potholes influenced by glacial history involving the Wisconsin Glaciation, and riparian corridors bordering the Platte River and Canadian River.
Plant community treatments addressed dominant assemblages such as shortgrass steppe dominated by Bouteloua gracilis, mixed-grass stands with Festuca, and tallgrass remnants containing Andropogon gerardii and Sorghastrum nutans. Fire ecology sections referenced work from researchers at the Tallgrass Prairie Center, the Rocky Mountain Research Station, and the USDA Forest Service describing pyric succession, grazing impacts from bison reintroductions coordinated with the National Park Service and states, and invasive dynamics involving taxa such as Bromus inermis, Cirsium arvense, and Lonicera maackii. Pollination and seed-dispersal chapters cited interactions with faunal partners including migratory birds managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and prairie mammals studied by the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center.
The project traced a lineage from 19th-century collectors like Thomas Nuttall, John Torrey, and Asa Gray through 20th-century floristic campaigns by Henry A. Gleason, Arthur Cronquist, and regional botanists at institutions including Oklahoma State University and the University of Nebraska State Museum. It integrated classical floras such as the Manual of Vascular Plants of the Central United States and later syntheses like the Flora of North America volumes. Funding and institutional support arrived via grants from the National Science Foundation, fellowships at the American Philosophical Society, and cooperative agreements with state natural heritage programs.
Conservation assessments in the associations' accounts informed red-listing by organizations such as the International Union for Conservation of Nature and state natural heritage programs like the Kansas Natural Heritage Inventory. Threat analyses highlighted land-use conversion driven by policies influenced by the Homestead Acts legacy and agricultural intensification supported by subsidies from the United States Department of Agriculture. Other pressures included oil and gas development in the Bakken Formation and Denver-Julesburg Basin, fragmentation by transportation projects overseen by the Federal Highway Administration, and altered hydrology from dam projects on the Missouri River and Platte River affecting wetland-dependent taxa.
Ethnobotanical sections documented indigenous and settler uses of prairie species by groups including the Omaha, Pawnee, Lakota, and Comanche peoples, with reference to medicinal and material applications recorded by ethnobotanists affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution and the University of Oklahoma. Prairie restoration projects linked to institutions such as the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, the Nature Conservancy, and the National Parks Conservation Association drew on the flora for seed-mix planning and cultural landscape rehabilitation associated with historic sites like Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve.
Category:Floras