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RHODORy\, 230-236, 2000 No. Vol. 102, 910, pp. NEWS NEBC MEETING November Mas- 1999. Bruce A. Sorrie, former botanist for the sachusetts Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program and now United botanical consultant the southeastern States, a in endemism spoke on the topic, ''Diversity and in the Coastal Plain Flora/' Sorrie defined the coastal plain as the exposed portion of extends from Cape Cod, Massachusetts the continental shelf that known to a portion of eastern Mexico and northward into the area embayment. composed Mississippi an area of Creta- as the It is ceous age and younger which mostly oceanic but deposits, are augmented by materials derived from the older adjacent physio- boundary by graphic provinces. inland defined "the Fall Its is Line/' where one encounters rocks of Paleozoic age. '*The coast- 8% American plain occupies about of the North landmass," he al The match geologic boundaries of the coastal plain the said. boundaries of what Sorrie considers to be the Coastal Plain FIo- To Province. put the coastal plain flora in perspective, Sorrie ristic much compared Appalachian to the Floristic Province, a older it area geologically, and one regarded as a refuge for plants during periods of widespread inland seas and global climate change. While has long been considered a major center of evolution it from which most eastern North American species evolved, the Appalachian Floristic Province, Sorrie points out, has only seven Am- endemic genera: Cymophyllus, Galax, Rugelia, Diamorphay Many and phiaiUhus, Janiesianthus, Nestronia, Riigelia. other genera often thought of as endemic to the Appalachian Province, Disporum, and Astilbe, Menziesia, are actually e.g., Jeff^'rsonia, Arcto-Tertiary disjuncts with species also occurring eastern in number Asia or elsewhere. Sorrie also mentioned a of genera centered in the Appalachians which have spread well beyond the borders of the Province, Chamaelirium, Clintonia, Epigaeay e.g., He 200- and Liriodendron. estimated there might be about that 300 endemic species in the Province, but he has not seen a figure on this. Alwyn Using a quote from the late Gentry, Sorrie explained conspicuous that the southeastern coastal plain but often is ''a endemism overlooked center of temperate North America." in km- Gentry remarkable only 152,000 and said, 'Tt that Florida, is with no topographic should rank second only virtually to relief, California number of endemic species; even more in re- it is 230 1 NEBC News Meeting 2000] 23 when we markable endemic consider that the plant species are concentrated in northern and centra] Florida, not in the subtropical southern part." According to Sorrie, there are 215 species wholly confined to Florida, and another hundred or so that extend but a from Alabama short distance borders into and/or Georgia. For its the coastal plain as a whole, there are two endemic plant families, 48 endemic genera, 35 of which monotypic, and about 1400 are endemic Endemism many he species, said. occurs in other coastal plain plant genera, 98 of which have five or more endemic spe- He cies, he added. felt that 60 million years of partial exposure of the coastal plain had allowed for considerable in situ plant new and colonization evolution of taxa. Sorrie's slides illustrated many Among endemic them of the genera. were: Balduina, Cer- Ma- atiola, Dicerandra, Franklinia, Harperocallis, Lachnanthes, cranthera, Pinckneya, Pyxidanthera, Schwalbea, Sclerolepis, Sto- Warea, and ZenobicL kesia, Sorrie joked about the seemingly monotonous, pine-dominated He landscape of the coastal plain. quoted Roland Harper, a pio- who neering botanist in the southeastern coastal plain, described a 700-mile from Augusta, Georgia Richmond, train trip to Vir- ginia, where he did ''not remember seeing any rocks, bluffs, es- hammocks, carpments, hills, ravines, gullies, springs, or or pass- ing through any deep enough view." railroad cuts to obstruct the commented some maps Sorrie that topograpic for eastern North Why Carolina even lack topographic contour he lines! then, rhe- torically asked, does the coastal plain support such botanical di- own Answering versity? his question, he gave seven possible rea- sons: (1) subtle shifts in soil composition and chemistry with eight of ten global soil orders represented; (2) subtle shifts in soil moisture; have profound subtle elevational differences (3) that effects on plant communities; high humidity and percentage (4) of sunshine; the highest frequency of lightning strikes in the (5) many which U.S., results in fire-adapted communities with high herb diversity; up to 60 million years of vegetational history (6) some that has provided, at least, localized refuges for temperate maximum species during times of advance; and glacial the (7) from derivation of the flora multiple source areas, including the and from tropics, subtropics, prairies deserts, as well as in situ A summary speciation. of ten different geographic patterns of endemism some floristic in the coastal plain, followed by ques- from ended tions the audience, the meeting. 232 Rhodora [Vol. 102 December Research Associate Professor 1999. Dr. Leila Shultz, Utah State University, presented a lecture entitled ''Breaking at new ground Using geographic information systems in floristics: western North America." For to predict species distributions in neophytes on Utah geography and she started by de- the flora, 4-6 number scribing provinces of Utah, the exact de- floristic pending on one's interpretation. The Colorado Plateaus define the southeastern portion of the state while the southwestern corner is Mojave considered an eastern extension of the Desert floristic A province. western fifth of the state consists of the Great Basin (formerly occupied by the pleistocene Lake Bonneville) and 35 associated mountain ranges including the calcareous Wasatch The Mountains form northwestern that the Basin's eastern border. by corner has mountains of igneous origin and a flora influenced more migrations from the Pacific Northwest. This leaves one or provinces in the east that include the Uinta Mountains, with flo- Rocky ristic affinities to the Mountains; the Uinta Basin, consid- La ered by some to be part of the Colorado Plateaus; and the Sal Mountains along border with Colorado. The Utah the flora in- num- cludes 2602 native and 682 introduced species, and these new due and Be- bers are increasing to discoveries introductions. tween 1974 and 1994, 88 new species were described from Utah, a number of them by Shultz herself. Also, newly naturalized in- new troductions have contributed about 100 taxa to the flora since 10-15% where 1987, she a state of the flora consid- seiid. It is is ered endemic and about 250 species have been proposed for fed- eral listing. between Dr. Shultz described the collaborative efforts herself, Martha and Utah Aiken, other researchers at State University to develop and test a geographic information system (GIS) for flo- new would have data the capability of predicting ristic that lo- A was toward end cations for the state's rare plants. step this first to create a rare species specimen database froin which geographic A coordinates could be extracted. rare species appendix to the Atlas Vascular Plants Utah published 1988 by Albee, of of in and Goodrich helped with Herbarium Shultz, this effort. speci- km mens mapped X were that could be at a 10 10 scale or finer mapped selected and digitized, so that each species represented a data layer in the GIS. The predictive modeling research was who largely that of Aiken completed a Master's thesis entitled ''Predictive modeling of rare plant habitat in the eastern Great NEBC News Meeting 233 2000] Basin/' a project funded by the Bureau of Land Management and A the Hill Air Force Base. field key was developed from envi- ronmental and associated species data collected 467 attributes at 20% Approximately were presence site plots. plots for rare spe- Four were rare plant species selected for their representation cies. & of different kinds of habitats: Sphaeralcea caespitosa (valley Penstemon concinnus (pinyon-junipcr woodland). foothill sites), Primula domensis of dolomite and Jamesia (faces tetra- cliffs), New petala (granite canyons). data layers with site-specific data were then added to the baseline information provided by the coarse grid-distributions provided by the Atlas. Additional data for the GIS models came from four existing geographic databas- es: one elevational, both state and national soil databases, and a maps were geology database. Probability of occurrence surficial then developed from the GIS data containing 13 environmental encompassing and geolog- variables slope, elevation, aspect, soil, data. ic The model used system predictive a tree-classification to sort The data using binary recursive partitioning. attribute data for each were examined optimal variable sequentially to identify the most homogeneity and partition resulting in the within classes the The was most heterogeneity between classes. procedure repeated The was dichotomous key for each branch of the key. result a was computer program that then incorporated into a for extrap- The dichotomous olation of the classification over large areas. key produced S-PIus was written as a series of conditional in GRID, model was statements for such that each variable in the GRID represented by a unique grid coverage. a cell-based geo- is GRID ARC/INFO. As processing software integrated with that is reads the conditional statement, each grid cell analyzed and is new which each simultaneously a grid generated in cell reflects is the predictions of the terminal leaves of the conditional statement. The new grid then converted to polygon coverage and the pre- is ARCPLOT mapped dictions are using Models were evaluated for percentage of correct predic- total tions and analyzed using two statistical tests for utility and bias. Both field-based and GIS-bascd models performed well for all four species of plants tested. For the GIS, based on 12 different 97% mean was models, accuracy for predictions; for the Field all mean Key, based on 16 models, the for correct predictions ex- ceeded 95%. The models with the highest and lowest bias utility 234 Rhodora 102 [Vol. used elevation and aspect in predicting distributions. Over-pre- was diction occurred for species but considered of prob- all less a lem than under-prediction. The number presentation included habitat pictures for a of rare species from the vast remote areas of Utah. Most of the species shown were discovered and described 1970s-80s. Although in the new number the rate of discoveries has declined, a respectable of new finds occuned the 1990s, demonstrating a need for con- in tinued botcinical exploration in remote areas of the intermountain west. Shultz emphasized the importance of using separate fields and for spatially explicit data (e.g., latitude longitude) in herbar- ium means databases, thus providing a for transporting floristic data geographic information systems. She encouraged em- to the ployment depending on of different spatial scales the data source, km 10 grids for the generalized localities provided by most i.e., km herbarium and collections grids for records with latitude 1 and longitude given seconds. Databases developed from in site- intensive studies such as those used in the Utah predictive model can serve the dual role of providing information for her- floristic barium vouchers and ecological data for mathematical models that investigate the relationship of plant distributions to climate and ecology. January 2000. The program of year 2000 was the first titled known Friday Foray "First into Fantastic Flora," better as the annual "show and where members make tell," are invited to short presentations that typically involve showing and narrating a small number As of images. exemplified by Donald slide presenter, first Don Lubin, however, slides are not a necessary prerequisite. ex- plained that he had prepared 62 laminated fronds of fern taxa and would them He have examination available for after the meeting. spoke Ray also of fern exploration with Abair that resulted in wood three fern hybrid taxa being discovered in the Blue Hills Boston and south of the verification of 39 pteridophyte taxa at Wachusett Mountain Worcester County, in including eight that had been not reported previously. Lisa Standley started the slides We with images from Okavango Delta Botswana. were the in shown enormous a relatively landscape with wetlands flat that resemble, according to Lisa, marshes of Manitoba. Here she saw many familiar genera such as Typha, Phragmites, Nymphaea, and mixed them Eleocharis, but with stems of Papyrus. Scirpiis, NEBC News Meeting 235 2000] Several trees from upland habitat were featured including the sau- sage Kigelia (with bat-pollinated orange flowers and large, tree, 10-12 sausage-shaped fruits), and baobabs, all large trees up to in diameter at their bases. Not seeing any immature baobabs, ft. Lisa expressed concern about whether or not they were repro- ducing. Close-ups of African large game, including one showing a group of side-by-side lionesses in crouched position lapping water, ended the brief glimpse of Africa. Nancy Eyster-Smith brought us back to the U.S. for a look at management on vegetation activities witnessed in national parks a family trip across country this past summer. At Glacier National saw Park, she propagated native species being planted along new walkways as part of a revegetation project, and metal board- walks that had been installed to prevent further trampling near Logan Pass. She also observed where exotic taxa had been sites spot-sprayed with herbicides. At Little Bighorn Battlefield Na- Memorial, people were seen pulling an invasive species of tional Hypericum by hand. Jumping the Caribbean, Richard Falcona to illustrated some arid landscapes and scenic views from the island shown were of John in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Plant taxa St. Agave cap Melocactus and century turk's cactus, intortiis, plant, Somers missiomim, both native to the island. Paul illustrated a few nonindigenous species encountered on a trip to the islands of Nevis and Examples shown were Momordica char- Kitts. St. (Cucurbitaceae) and Calotropis procera (Asclepiadaceae), antia both indigenous Old World and cashew An- to the tropics, trees. acardium occidentale, a native of northern South America. Paul also showed a few shots of wetland plants taken in Massachusetts, including Utricularia cornuta and U, from Plymouth inflata County, Potamogeton ogdenii from Berkshire County, and a pos- new from record of Lycopodiella alopecuroides northern sible Pam Worcester County. Sticking with the Massachusetts theme, some Weatherbee and encountered illustrated habitats plants dur- Hop Management Brook ing a biological survey of the Wildlife Area southern Berkshire County. Despite a long history of land in Pam some wetlands reported finding relatively natural utilization, Galium with species such as Iris versicolor^ palustre, Salix Can- and communities containing an dida, Salix serissima; forest in- Quercus and Carpinus teresting association of bicolor carolini- ana\ and even a couple of rare plant species. Also catching Pam's eye during the survey was a beautiful Baltimore checkerspot, a Rhodora 236 102 [Vol. butterfly species thought to be switching from Chelone to Plan- food tago as a phuit. Andy Hudson Finton then took us across the Berkshires to the New community York on River Valley of for a presentation plant work completed by himself and inventory recently there col- We New York Program. leagues Natural Heritage learned the at remnant on oak-dominated about serpentine barrens Staten Island; and rocky sum- forests with heath understories in the river valley mit communities; and beech-maple and spruce-dominated old swamp growth where one conifer yielded forests in the Catskills, gum black aged 485 Other communities highlighted were a at yrs. communities Albany and calcareous with calciphile ferns in cliff Greene Counties and bog, sedge meadow, and spruce com- flat munities of the Rensselaer Plateau. Newman who The was by George closing presentation visually transported us to the Gaspe Peninsula for a preview of sites to NEBC summer be visited and things to do during the field trip George emphasized 2000. the extensive serpentine bar- in July, many above on Mont-Albert and rens timberline the calciphiles Mont At that could be found in sea cliffs around Ste. Pierre. watch and Forillon National Park, options of boating to sea lions Cap-Bon-Ami were seals or botanizing the talus slopes of offered as enticements. In the Perce vicinity, exploring calcareous con- Mont glomerate formations of Ste-Anne, sea occupied by cliffs gannets and puffins on He Bonaventure, or limestone river beds Grand were of Riviere presented as interesting options. Somhrs, Recording Pai'l Secretary.

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