Oregon Vascular Plant Checklist

Guide For Contributors

Dr. Linda Hardison
Oregon Flora Project
Department of Botany & Plant Pathology
Oregon State University/ 2082 Cordley Hall
Corvallis, OR 97331 (541) 737-4338
hardisol@science.oregonstate.edu

1.0 INTRODUCTION

There is a great need for a modern, state-wide Flora of Oregon. Only California, Texas, and Arizona have more vascular plant species than Oregon and yet the most recent flora of Oregon, A Manual of the Higher Plants of Oregon, 2nd Ed. (Peck 1961) does n ot reflect decades of biosystematic and floristic research. People in many parts of the state must consult more than one flora for identifications. The Oregon Vascular Plant Checklist is intended to be used as a tool for consistent application of botanical names used by botanists in Oregon. The Checklist is also intended to stimulate pooling and expanding knowledge of our flora and to be an initial step in the production of a Flora of Oregon.

The working Checklist of Oregon vascular plants is maintained in a Paradox 5.0 relational database at the OSU herbarium. The Checklist was originally compiled by Karl Urban under the guidance of Ken Chambers, mainly from floras and literature available in 1989. This draft is now being revised. The Oregon Vascular Plant Checklist will include names for all species, subspecies, and varieties of native and naturalized vascular plants occurring in Oregon. Names of Oregon plants accepted in recent floras covering parts of Oregon will be listed in the Checklist, either as accepted names, or as synonyms. Because synonyms from several floras will be included in the Checklist, it will supplement existing floras. People using these different sources to key out plants will more readily be able to compare treatments among the floras. The most widely used common names for each taxon will also be included and, where possible, native or non-native status will be indicated. Literature citations will be provided to guide users to additional sources of information on Oregon taxa.

The main purposes of this Guide for Contributors are to give general guidelines on included taxa, to describe editorial procedures, and to outline manuscript preparation.

2.0 GENERAL GUIDELINES

2.1 Nomenclatural Goals

A goal of the Checklist is to provide a taxonomy that is acceptable to the majority of systematists and useful to the greatest number of amateur and professional botanists in Oregon. In order to achieve this goal, circumscription and rank of taxa included in the Checklist should promote nomenclatural stability. For example, infraspecific taxa should be treated only when they are well-defined. If there is a broad zone of intergradation between infraspecific taxa, this should be indicated in the Comments section and will be edited for inclusion in the printed Checklist. Classifications should be based on all available data throughout the range of each taxon.

2.2 Inclusion of Taxa in the Checklist

Taxa to be included in the Checklist manuscripts are:

Occurrence of taxa in Oregon must be vouchered by an annotated herbarium specimen or documented by publication in a reputable literature source, such as a taxonomic monograph. Mention of a taxon's occurrence in Oregon in a flora does not guarantee that the taxon will be included in the Checklist.

2.2.1 Native Plants

Native plants meet one or more of the following criteria:

The last criterion requires an assessment of the likelihood of a taxon being disjunct in Oregon by natural processes and not due to recent dispersal by humans. A taxon native to eastern North America and not known to occur between there and here is clea rly an exotic taxon in Oregon. However, a Cusick collection of Rafinesquia californica made in the late 1800s or early 1900s in Malheur County is less easily interpreted. The species is known from the east side of the Cascade-Sierra divide only as far north as southern Nevada and Utah. The species is being treated as an Oregon native, taking into consideration the poor knowledge of plant distributions in areas between the known southern desert populations and the Oregon collection locality . Some herbarium collections may also be mislabeled, and caution should be exercised. For example, a collection of Simmondsia chinensis (a native of the Sonoran Desert and nearby areas of southern California and Mexico) collected in 1898 fr om "Lower Cohuila Creek, Ore." was probably collected in southern California, where place names containing "Cohuila" are not uncommon and the plant is native.

2.2.2 Exotic Plants

Exotic or non-native plants (weeds, aliens, escapes, waifs, naturalized, etc.) plants are post- colonial arrivals from distant parts of North America or from other continents. Taxa that are both native and non-native are seldom encountered, but there ar e a few possible examples such as Phragmites australis, Festuca rubra, and Phalaris arundinacea.

Two categories of exotic plants will be included in the Checklist: escaped cultivated plants, and noncultivated exotic plants (naturalized weeds and waifs).

2.2.2.1 Escaped Cultivated Plants

Agricultural and garden plants should be included in the Checklist if they meet two criteria:

  1. the plants have persisted in the wild for at least 3-5 years; and
  2. the colony has spread beyond the area where it was originally cultivated.

Assessment of naturalization of cultivated plants should take into consideration the biology of the plant. For example, Sequoiadendron individuals will last centuries at an old homestead, but do not reproduce and spread, and are therefore n ot included in the Checklist; holly seedlings under a planted tree would not be considered escaped, but holly seedlings thriving in adjacent hedgerows, woodlots and roadsides would count as naturalized and be included; daffodils persisting and spreading f or decades in cultivated grass fields and ditches despite herbicides, disking, and burning for weed control would also count as naturalized and be included in the Checklist.

In many cases there will be only herbarium label data available, and no familiarity with the population from which specimens were collected. In these cases the collection label must clearly state that the specimen was not cultivated (i.e. escaped, natur alized, weedy, etc.) for the taxon to be included in the Checklist. Collections of agricultural and garden plants without such label data must be considered cultivated plants.

2.2.2.2 Noncultivated Exotic Plants

Weeds (populations of aliens) are nuisance taxa of ruderal or native habitats, generally accepted as post-colonial arrivals in our area. They will be accepted in the Checklist if a herbarium voucher has been seen. Note in the Comments section if you ha ve not seen a voucher for the taxon, and cite the reference, and reported herbarium and collection that are the basis for the record. Questionable cases of origin are often judged on little or no data, as early records, reports & collections of weeds are few. For example, Carex leporina, a common wetland plant in the Willamette Valley, may have been introduced in pioneer times but data supporting this hypothesis are scant. Indicate uncertainty in your comments.

Waifs are solitary aliens or small groups of plants that do not persist more than one season. For example, ballast plants known from early collections in Portland are mostly waifs. Most collection labels fail to indicate size or persistence of populati ons of weeds. Waifs will be included in the Checklist with a comment concerning the source of the record (e.g., under Amaranthus deflexus: "collected once on ship ballast in Portland in 1902").

2.2.3 Hybrids

Hybridization is a genetic phenomenon of great importance in plant evolution. Many extant taxa, both diploids and polyploids, are known or suspected to be the product of interspecific hybridization. Naturally occurring, self-reproducing species of hybr id origin will be included in the Checklist. However, judgement will have to be exercised by Checklist authors as to the inclusion of hybrids that may be sporadic, or non-self-reproducing, or not forming species-like population aggregates. As a guide to authors, the following suggestions are made, recognizing that the diversity of evolutionary patterns and reproductive methods among vascular plant genera is too great to allow firm generalizations which would fit all possible cases.

The general rule will be to include interspecific hybrids that are either frequent (albeit sporadic) in Oregon, or that form persistent, self-maintaining populations (e.g., through some asexual reproductive system). To be excluded from the Checklist, th erefore, are rarely occurring hybrids and those that are functionally sterile, hence not persisting for long at any given site. It is recommended that interspecific hybrid swarms and introgressant (i.e., extensively backcrossed) populations not be includ ed in the Checklist but should be noted under Comments. Also to be excluded are populations formed in hybrid zones between subspecies or varieties of a particular species (i.e., intra-specific hybrids).

Some interspecific hybrids, especially in well studied plant groups, will have been assigned a specific epithet in the past. Modern practice allows the citation of such hybrids using an "x" inserted between the genus name and specific epithet, followed by citation of the original author. An example is Arctostaphylos x media Greene (Flora of the Pacific Northwest, page 342), which is the sporadic but fairly frequent hybrid between A. uva-ursi and A. columbian a or A. patula. If a specific epithet is not available, then a frequent or persistent hybrid should be cited by a formula that indicates the parental taxa, as in the form Crataegus douglasii x monogyna. In t he special case of named apomictic species in genera such as Crepis, Antennaria et al., no "x" is placed before the species epithet (e.g., Crepis intermedia A. Gray). In a few families, especially Poaceae, some inter-generic hyb rids may be common enough to merit inclusion. These can be assigned to a nothogenus formed by combining elements from the names of the parental genera, in the form X Elyhordeum macounii (Vasey) Barkworth & Dewey, a sterile hybrid between Elymus trachycaulus and Hordeum jubatum.

2.2.4 Unnamed Taxa

Some Oregon taxa are widely known to botanists in Oregon but have not yet been formally described. Among these are rare taxa with unpublished names (nomina nuda) that have been cited in various rare plant lists, popular guides, and rare plant status rep orts. Many of these taxa are in the process of being described. Other undescribed taxa may not generally be known to the botanical community, but are known to contributors. If you are aware of undescribed taxa, please include them in your manuscript, w ith or without a proposed epithet. However, to be included in the Checklist, a taxon must be validly published or submitted for publication at the time the Checklist goes to press.

2.3 Materials Provided to Contributors

Draft checklist: the most recent version of the taxonomic group assigned to you. This list was compiled from several published sources and from specimens in the Oregon State University Herbarium (OSC), Willamette University Herbarium (WI LLU) and the University of Oregon Herbarium (ORE), all of which are housed at Oregon State University. In many cases it has also been modified to reflect treatments in The Jepson Manual and/or the Intermountain Flora. Because the Checklist was compiled from a variety of sources, there may be inconsistencies and duplications. Also, due to the way Paradox generates reports, when more than one synonym is listed for a taxon, the accepted name is repeated in the report. The list you receive has been edite d to remove these duplications, but some may have been overlooked.

List of taxa of uncertain standing: this includes names applied to herbarium specimens for which we cannot easily track synonymy, taxa mentioned in various sources but not fully documented, and other names of taxa of uncertain disposition . Information on the source of each name is provided.

Data form: blank data form for additions to the Checklist.

Standard author abbreviations: extracted from Authors of Plant Names (Brummitt & Powell 1992). This includes author names that we have found in the Checklist so far.

Upon request, taxonomic treatments from standard references used for the Checklist: we can provide photocopies of treatments not readily available to you.

2.4 Submission of Manuscripts

Manuscripts should be submitted to the appropriate Family Editor as indicated in the transmittal letter. If no Family Editor is indicated, send manuscripts to Scott Sundberg. Please give your name as you wish it to appear in the Checklist.

2.5 Deadlines

In the transmittal letter, a deadline for submission of your draft treatment has been indicated. Two weeks to one month before your deadline you will receive a reminder card. If the deadline passes without our hearing from you, we may contact you to ne gotiate a new deadline. We reserve the right to reassign the family or genus after the deadline has passed.

2.6 Editorial Process/Review

All manuscripts are reviewed by a "Family Editor," who is a member of the Editorial Board of the Oregon Flora Project. Following review by the Family Editor, manuscripts are either submitted directly to the entire Editorial Board for review or, if signi ficant changes are needed, are returned to the author for revision. Manuscripts may also be sent out to independent reviewers. Ultimately, the Editorial Board reviews each manuscript and recommends revisions to contributing authors. The Editorial Board reserves the right to reject any treatment in whole or in part.

3.0 INSTRUCTIONS FOR MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION

Manuscripts submitted by contributors will be typed by us into the Paradox database and cannot be merged into the database electronically. Because of this, we prefer that you (legibly) mark up the draft Checklist we have provided to you. Literature cit ations should be typed or clearly printed on a separate sheet. However, if you prefer to work from a computer file, we can provide a draft on diskette. In this case, to help with data entry, please use a different font (bold, underline, etc.) to clearly indicate the modifications you have made to the draft.

References: For each genus or family a space has been provided for writing in the primary references used in preparing treatments. We are most interested in citation of monographs, revisions, and other articles that relate to the nomenc lature of the group. Please cite the author(s) and year of publication here and include the full literature citation (see Section 3.6) on a separate page.

The following discussion describes information to include for each taxon. Sections correspond to items presented in the Checklist draft provided to you.

3.1 Accepted Name

This is the first entry for each taxon.

3.1.1 Infraspecific Taxa

So that the Oregon Flora Checklist will be compatible with other floristic studies underway in North America, authors should list subspecies and varieties, including typical sspp. and vars. (autonyms), for each species in Oregon, if in their judgement an infraspecific classification is taxonomically justified. Quadrinomials, formae, and cultivars however, will not be included in the Checklist. For some genera, the infraspecific rank may have to be listed at the varietal level under some species and at the subspecific level under others, due to inconsistencies in taxonomic treatments in standard literature for the genus. New combinations will not be made in the Checklist, therefore this inconsistency is permitted. Some reasons for not treating infrasp ecific taxa include: the author's judgement that such taxa are too poorly defined and difficult to differentiate; inadequate literature or specimens from which the status of Oregon representatives can be evaluated; for non-native taxa, conflicting treatm ents in U.S. or foreign literature and floras which cannot easily be resolved. Contributors may thus choose to treat certain taxa only at the specific level, even though infraspecific taxa are recognized in various of our standard references. For all su ch cases, comments indicating the reasons for excluding or not evaluating infraspecific taxa should be noted in the Comments section of the manuscript.

3.1.2 Authorities

Authorities are given for both the species and infraspecific taxon (unless it is an autonym). Authorities will follow standard abbreviations used in Authors of Plant Names (Brummitt & Powell 1992). Authors not included in the document should be spelled out fully as they appear in the original publication or other source and a note be included to indicate that a standard abbreviation is needed. Accents used in some foreign names (e.g., ngstr., Borb s, C.H. Mll.) but omitted from the drafts should be corrected in the manuscript.

There has been an attempt to standardize most author abbreviations, but errors may remain. For example, in the genus Carex, two authors with the last name of Boott have described taxa that occur in Oregon. However, in the sources used for compiling the checklist years ago, only one abbreviation was used for both authors. This error was caught only after the contributor of Carex for the checklist (Peter Zika) began working on his draft. In addition, the original checklist was compiled from sources that did not cite both names when "ex" was included in the full author citation. Thus, if the original source of the name was from The Flora of the Pacific Northwest, "Dougl." would have been cited instead of the full "Douglas ex L indl.," as needed for listing the authority in the Checklist.

"ex" will be used in the Checklist to cite an authority who is mentioned by the publishing author as having suggested the taxon name. This will be done to avoid confusion due to authority mismatches between The Jepson Manual - Higher Plants of Californi a and the Flora of the Pacific Northwest. Use "Dougl. ex Lindl.," not "Dougl." as in FPNW or "Lindl." as in the Jepson Manual.

"in" will not be used in author citations. The name appearing before "in" will be used alone. For example, "Nutt. in Torr. & A. Gray" will be cited as "Nutt."

3.2 Synonym(s) Sources & Comments

Synonyms of Oregon taxa used in the following references should be included in the Checklist. Other synonyms may also be listed if there is a compelling reason for their inclusion. If you are unable to obtain treatments from any of these sources, conta ct us and we will provide photocopies.

When citing a synonym, cite its source using the two- or three-letter code provided above and the volume number (for multi-volume floras) and page number (e.g., [PEK-035] - Peck, page 35; [IN3-234] - Intermountain Flora, volume 3, page 234).

Misapplied names (sensu auct., of authors, etc.) should be included as synonyms if they appear in the standard references listed above. When listed, write "misapplied" after the name and indicate in which reference(s) the name was misapplied.

"Implied" synonyms at the varietal and subspecific level: In both Peck's Manual (PEK) and Abrams & Ferris, Illustrated Flora (IL), there are usually no direct citations of the autonym names of "typical" varieties or subspecies within recognized species. Instead, the genus and species binomial is given, followed by a description of the typical var. or ssp., and additional vars. and sspp. are then named, each with a description that differentiates it from the typical var. or ssp. For example, in Peck pa ge 813, the description of Franseria chamissonis Less. applies to var. chamissonis, but this varietal autonym epithet is not mentioned by Peck; he does cite and describe the additional var. bipinnatisecta Less., indi cating that he intended to recognize two varieties in Oregon. In placing these names in synonymy, the rule is to consider that Peck by implication did recognize var. chamissonis. Therefore, under the accepted Checklist taxon Ambrosia chamissonis (Less.) Greene var. chamissonis will be cited the synonym Franseria chamissonis (Less.) Greene var. chamissonis, (implied in PEK-813). The treatment of this species in Abrams and Ferris uses subsp ecies categories rather than varieties, but as in Peck, the "typical" subspecies is implied but not named. The synonym citation from that book is: Franseria chamissonis Less. ssp. chamissonis, (implied in IL4-150). In the Check list, implied varieties and subspecies synonyms will be cited only for species having two or more varieties or subspecies listed in the original reference (e.g., Peck's Manual and Abrams and Ferris' Illustrated Flora).

Cases in which a variety or subspecies is accepted in the Checklist and a standard reference (PEK, IL, FPN, etc.) lists only a species without indication of variety, are often difficult to interpret. In these cases it is usually impossible to determine if the author was aware of the presence of only the typical ssp. or var. in Oregon, or did not recognize sspp. or vars. in the species. For the Checklist, we will not list the species cited in the standard reference as synonym. For example, in the Check list we recognize Perideridia gairdneri (Hook. & Arn.) Mathias ssp. borealis T.I. Chuang & Constance and Peck lists only Perideridia gairdneri, which is not to be listed as a synonym under the ssp.

All comments relating to synonyms should be noted in this section, as opposed to comments about the accepted name, which are put in the general comments section at the end (see Section 3.7).

3.3 Common Names

List one or two common names for all accepted taxa, giving the preferred common name first. Selection should be based on frequency of use of the common name, not solely on personal preference. If no common name is found in published sources, a common n ame should be provided by the contributor. It is recommended that the name describe the plant's morphology, distribution, or habitat. If you have made up a common name, please indicate "newly composed common name" in the Comments section. Common names included in the draft have been gathered from various sources and may be accepted or rejected.

Common name orthography, especially concerning hyphenation of names and joining of short words will be made consistent during the editorial process and need not be changed in the drafts.

3.4 Origin

See definitions of "Native" and "Exotic" in Section 2.2.

3.5 Voucher

List herbarium acronym for voucher. If no voucher has been examined, leave the section blank and note this in the Comments section. We will attempt to find a voucher. Only one herbarium should be listed. Authors should annotate at least one Oregon sp ecimen of each taxon in some institutional herbarium.

3.6 Citation

Literature citations will be provided to guide the reader to references that either show that the taxon is present in Oregon, or provide information that is specific to the taxon. The purpose of including literature citations is to guide people to refer ences that are unavailable to many users. In order to minimize the length of the checklist, citations will be included following the following guidelines: 1) If the accepted taxon name is listed in A Manual of the Higher Plants of Oregon, 2nd Ed., Flora of the Pacific Northwest, The Jepson Manual - Higher Plants of California, or Intermountain Flora, DO NOT cite additional references. We are assuming that users are able to consult these references without too much difficulty.

2) If the accepted taxon name is not listed in any of the above references but is listed in Vascular Plants of the Pacific Northwest, An Illustrated Flora of the Pacific States, Flora of North America, or Guide to the Plants of the Wallowa Mountains of Northeastern Oregon, CITE the corresponding abbreviation for the reference and page number (e.g., VP3-281, IL2-125, FN2-300, GWM-073).

3) If the accepted taxon name is NOT listed in any of the above references, give the full literature citation, with the exception of Kartesz, 1994, which will not be cited in this section.

Personal communications should be noted in the Comments section and not here. Use the following format examples for literature citations. The citations can be typed on a separate page and special characters or accents pencilled in. Do not underline or use italics.

Examples of literature citations: 

     Halse, R.R. 1992. Noteworthy collections. Oregon. Madro¤o 39:159.
 
     Meinke, R.J. and P.F. Zika. 1992. A new annual species of Minuartia (Caryophyllaceae) from Oregon and California. Madro¤o 39:288-300.
 
     Brummitt, R.K. and C.E. Powell, eds. 1992. Authors of plant names. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
 
     Steyermark, J.A. 1963. Flora of Missouri. Iowa State University Press, Ames.

3.7 Comments

Include here comments on the accepted name, such as information source (if not published), personal communications, uncertainty of record, etc. Most comments will be used to aid the review process and will not be published in the Checklist. Comments of particular interest however, will probably be included in the final publication, for example:

Comments published in the Checklist will be limited to one phrase or sentence. Long comments are allowed in submitted manuscripts but may be summarized for entry in the database.

3.8 Sample Treatments

 
 Hieracium canadense Michx.
 
 SYNONYM(S), SOURCES & COMMENTS:
 
      O.K.
 
 COMMON NAME(S): Canadian hawkweed
 ORIGIN: E    VOUCHER: none
 CITATION:
 COMMENTS: Questionably present in OR, i.e. "reputedly" [FPN-530], 
     but all specimens labelled this in ORE, WILLU are 
     H. umbellatum
 
 
 
 Stephanomeria elata Nutt.
 
 SYNONYM(S), SOURCES & COMMENTS:
 
 
      O.K.
 
 
 COMMON NAME(S): Nuttall's wirelettuce 
 ORIGIN:  N   VOUCHER: WILLU
 CITATION: Gottlieb, L.D. 1972.
 COMMENTS: Included implicitly with S. virgata Benth. 
     in PEK-854. Newly composed in common name!
 



 Stephanomeria tenuifolia (Raf.) H.M. Hall 
 
 SYNONYM(S), SOURCES & COMMENTS:
     Stephanomeria tenuifolia (Raf.) H.M. Hall var.
     myrioclada (D.C. Eaton) Cronquist VP5-316; FPN-522;
     IL5-448
     
 
 
 COMMON NAME(S): narrow-leaved stephanomeria; bush wirelettuce
 ORIGIN: N     VOUCHER: OSC
 CITATION:
 COMMENTS: The var. myrioclada is too poorly differentiated
     to be given taxonomic recognition 
 
 

 
 
 
 ACCEPTED NAME: Rafinesquia californica Nutt.
 
 SYNONYM(S), SOURCES & COMMENTS:
 
 
 
 
 COMMON NAME(S): California chicory
 ORIGIN: N     VOUCHER: ORE
 CITATION:
 COMMENTS: A peculiar range extension in s. Malheur Co., collected
     by Cusick in the 1880's and not seen since.
 
 
 
 

 
 Berberis pinnata Lag. ssp. pinnata 
 
 SYNONYM(S), SOURCES & COMMENTS:
 Mahonia pinnata (Lag.) Fedde IL2-217
 
 
 
 
 COMMON NAME(S): California barberry
 ORIGIN: N    VOUCHER: OSC
 CITATION:
 COMMENTS: Very difficult to distinguish from compact-leaflet coastal
     ecotypes of B. aquifolium; status in s.w. Oregon is
     unclear. A second ssp. occurs on Calif. Channel Islands.