| Flora of New England | ||
From
the highest points in New England, Mt. Washington in New Hampshire
and Mt. Katahdin in Maine to the islands off the Atlantic Coast,
there are over 3000 vascular plant species found in New England.  |
Flora Novae-Angliae [Flora of New England] |
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New England Wild Flower Society is working on the newest New England Flora, the most comprehensive botanical reference book and website to our region's native plants, to date. Arthur Haines, NEWFS Research Botanist, has already begun to write and continually update the flora online. View the preliminary checklist and learn more. Several factors have combined to produce our present flora. Firstly glaciers created New England’s wide array of geographic features, including mountains, lakes, rivers and the seacoast, all of which host an amazing variety of habitats within 66,000 square miles. Our northerly climate with its 40-50 inches of precipitation provides ample moisture for plant life. Finally, humans have had a major influence on our vegetation. Before the arrival of Europeans 400 years ago, New England was originally mostly forest, but there were also open areas, maintained, in some cases, by fire by the Native Americans. Beginning in the 17th century, European settlers cleared many of our forests for agriculture, lumber and fuel. and by the1800s, as much as 80% of the forests has been removed. As the population moved westward in pursuit of new and more profitable lands for agriculture, the forests gradually returned, and New England now has more forested land than 200 years ago. With the advent of the Europeans also came the introduction of new plants, diseases, and animals. Plant introductions from other areas of the U.S and the rest of the world now make up at least 1/3 of our flora. Thus our present flora is the result of glaciation, climate, and more recently, human disturbance. |
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Flora Novae Angliae is Latin for Flora of New England. It is the the working project title for a new work that will provide identification keys, images, and distribution maps for the region's tracheophytes that grow without cultivation on the landscape. This work will combine a partly illustrated field manual with a companion website. The purpose of the website is threefold. One, it will contain information that would otherwise be too expensive to place in print (e.g., color images). Two, it will enable the identification manual to remain at a manageable field size by placing part of the information on the web (e.g., county-level distribution maps). Three, it will help the manual become more of a "living document" by providing users with ongoing information updates in order that they can maintain current information in their working knowledge base. Visit http://www.arthurhaines.com/flora_novae_angliae.htm to view the initial checklist of the flora. [Note: this link will take you away from the New England Wild Flower Society website. Use your browser's "back" button to return to this page after viewing the checklist.] BACKGROUND: The New England Wild Flower Society has received funding from the Stratford Foundation for a five-year project that will: (A) develop approximately 2000 keys to all of the families, genera, and species of tracheophytes (seed plants and ferns) growing outside cultivation in New England and (B) distribute these keys and the associated research through publications, symposia, and the World Wide Web. This project will combine current taxonomic research as well as the results of historic and recent floristic surveys with a web-based application. This project will provide the necessary framework (i.e., serve as a precursor) for the development of a new Flora of New England. Over the next five years, our current Research Botanist and author of the Flora of Maine, Arthur Haines, will develop keys to all of the tracheophytes of New England. As a contributor and regional reviewer for Flora North America (a continent-wide collaboration of plant experts) Mr. Haines is widely acknowledged as one of the most knowledgeable botanists in New England. He has the unique distinction of knowing both the plants in the field as well as the current scientific research that will define, diagnose, and identify the plants of our region for years to come. The New England Wild Flower Society will eventually host this research on its website (see temporary link to preliminary checklist above). The individual identification keys produced will allow identifications of difficult groups, such as willows, asters, grasses, and orchids. An explanation of the research leading to the keys, the keys themselves, and diagnostic photos of the plants in the keys (as obtainable) will be made available on the website of the New England Wild Flower Society. The research for this project is likely to uncover new records, and these findings will be published in Rhodora, the journal of the New England Botanical Club, or another appropriate professional journals. We anticipate that the results of these five years of research will form the basis of a new Flora of New England and we will be seeking funding to produce a new manual in the form of a field book (including keys, plant descriptions, and diagnostic drawings) and an associated website (with color images, distribution maps, and additional reference material) which will remain a perpetually updated flora for our region. |
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Flora Conservanda: New England Flora Conservanda: New England, the New England Plant Conservation Program (NEPCoP) list of plants in need of conservation was published in the Summer 1996 (Volume 98, No. 895) of Rhodora, the Journal of the New England Botanical Club. Written from a regional perspective, this list contains plants growing in New England that are Globally Rare, Regionally Rare, and Locally Rare. It also lists plants that are considered Historic to New England (though they may exist elsewhere in the U.S.) and plants whose status in the region is yet Undetermined (more research is needed). CLICK HERE to learn more about Flora Conservanda, including the complete text of the list. |
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| Regional Herbaria. Herbaria are museums of plant species. They house pressed specimens of plants that have been collected from a region. These specimens are invaluable in documenting the natural history and flora of a particular area. Most large state and private universities house significant herbaria. There are many more herbaria throughout our region that are equally valuable albeit smaller in size. CLICK HERE for a list of many of the larger herbaria in the Northeast, along with links to one or two major collections of note in the rest of the U.S | ||
* NOTE: To view Acrobat files, you will need to have installed the free Adobe Acrobat reader which can be downloaded at the Adobe site. CLICK HERE to visit Adobe download page. If you have any difficulty downloading this document, please contact webmaster@newfs.org
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