About the Atlas - Introductions

INTRODUCTION

The New York Flora Atlas originated with the efforts of Homer House and the Master File of maps located at the NY State Museum. Stanley Smith recorded the collecting or observation location for voucher specimens, literature citations, and personal observations for all of New York’s vascular plants. This effort led to the Preliminary Vouchered Atlas of New York State Flora (New York Flora Association 1990). This effort led to greater botanical field work throughout the state and the addition of many new county records. In 2002, a static online atlas was created to include many of these new records (Weldy et. al 2002). The purpose of this static online atlas was to show users the most current distribution of vascular plants in New York and to seek funding to create a dynamic atlas. In 2004, funding for the current atlas was obtained from the New York State Biodiversity Research Institute with matching funds contributed on behalf of the New York Flora Association membership. As the current atlas developed, efforts to create a vascular and non-vascular distribution atlas were merged.

The New York Flora Atlas is a source of information for the distribution of plants within the state, as well as information on plant habitats, associated ecological communities, and taxonomy. In addition, users can learn about the location of vouchered specimens and see images to get a better visual for each plant. The next step is to create a Manual to the New York State Flora. Early efforts are underway to move towards this goal.

The records in the flora database are largely based on the original atlas (NYFA 1990) with additional records from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BKL) and the New York State Museum (NYS). Numerous other herbaria have contributed data to this atlas. For a complete list of contributing herbaria, please consult the list of contributors.

The documented occurrence (i.e. vouchered specimen) of a species in a county is indicated by the shading of that entire county. The entire shading of a county should not be interpreted as a county-wide distribution of a plant, rather that one or more specimens were collected somewhere within that county.

The knowledge of the flora of any large region will always remain dynamic as new species are discovered and others disappear. Certain counties or areas of the state that previously were sparsely collected will undoubtedly gain the attention of botanists eager to fill in distributional gaps. The authors welcome specimens to document the occurrence of new distributional records.

Nomenclature for this atlas is largely based on the USDA Plants Database, with some minor exceptions. All nomenclature has been reviewed by the New York Flora Taxonomy and Nomenclature Committee.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The New York Flora Atlas was made possible through a grant from the New York State Biodiversity Research Institute with matching funds from the New York Flora Association membership. The New York State Department of Education ensures the continued maintenance of the database. The data are updated and maintained by the New York Flora Association and the New York Natural Heritage Program. Various herbaria, especially the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, have been critical to the addition of new voucher records. A special thanks is given to Dave Gerhard, New York State Museum, for his technical support with the the atlas server and atlas database.

TECHNOLOGY

The New York Flora Atlas is based on the technology developed for the Atlas of Florida Vascular Plants (Wunderlin and Hansen 2004). Distribution information compiled from herbarium specimens and the nomenclature are entered into a Microsoft SQL Server database management system (PlantDB). Specimen data, including distribution information compiled from herbarium specimens, are entered into a Microsoft SQL Server database management system (PlantDB). Atlas web pages are generated directly from the PlantDB database using the ASP program language served from Microsoft's Internet Information Server. Maps are generated directly from PlantDB using ESRI MapObjects 2.0 technology residing on a Microsoft NT server. Because the Atlas web site is generated directly from PlantDB, all web pages and maps are as up to date as the information entered into the database.

All servers are maintained at the New York State Department of Education. The PlantDB database management system was designed by Shawn Landry (FCCDR) with the help of Jeb Holub (Axis Technologies, Inc.) and Bruce Hansen (ISB). The web application was developed by Shawn Landry, Kyle Campbell, and Logan Mabe (FCCDR), via consultation with Troy Weldy (New York Natural Heritage Program). For more information on how your state or region can develop a similar atlas, please contact Shawn Landry at the Florida Center for Community Design and Research. Additional information about the New York Flora Atlas should be directed to Troy Weldy.

For more information, contact: Troy Weldy or David Werier

Web Development: | The Florida Center for Community Design + Research

A member of the University of South Florida family of PlantAtlas.org sites

Citation Information:

Weldy, Troy and David Werier. 2009 New York Flora Atlas. [S. M. Landry and K. N. Campbell (original application development), Florida Center for Community Design and Research. University of South Florida]. New York Flora Association, Albany, New York.

Search Help

Select the criterion by which you wish to search (Scientific name, Genus, Family, etc.) and enter that information into the provided field.

Hint: Correct spelling is necessary for desired results, but because this function is a string search the full name need not be entered. Any correct part of a taxon name can be entered and a choice of the correct one made from the small list of resulting matches.

For example, matching the full name exactly in a Scientific Name search for Piptochaetium avenacioides may be difficult, but strings of either tium aven or avenaci or m avenac or pipto will all result in very small lists of matches. The intended name can then be chosen from any of those lists. Usually, the last letter (or two) of a given genus, a space, and the first few correct letters of the specific epithet will provide a sufficiently short list containing the desired taxon.

A similar example in a Common Name search is Virginia snakeroot. Searching using "snake root" will yield no results due to the extra space, but searching "snake" will generate a short list of plants with the word "snake" in the common name. Furthermore, a search of "Virginia snake" or even "nia snak" yields one result: Virginia snakeroot.

If, after following the above advice, then difficulties are still encountered please use the "browse" feature.

Definition: Vouchered Specimen

A voucher specimen is a pressed and thoroughly dried plant sample deposited in a herbarium, and is intended to be a permanent record supporting research purposes. A voucher may be a record of a plant's occurrence in a particular area, or a specific example of a plant used in a scientific investigation.

Proper vouchers display all the necessary attributes for complete identification of the plant, and are to be accompanied by accurate locality, habitat, collection time, and collector data.

Only plant populations vouchered by specimens deposited in Index Herbariorum http://sciweb.nybg.org/science2/IndexHerbariorum.asp recognized herbaria are represented on this map.