The Oregon Flora Project
Introduction
A flora is a comprehensive account of the plants of an area, and provides a means to identify unknown plants. The Oregon Flora Project seeks to present scientifically sound information about the vascular plants of Oregon that grow without cultivation in formats that are useful to generalists as well as to scientists. There are four basic components to the Oregon Flora Project: the Atlas, the Checklist, the Flora, and the Photo Gallery. Our information is available to the public through our website.
Contents
- Project Scope
- History
- Looking ahead
- Project Organization
- Project Associates
- Funding
- The role of volunteers
Project Scope
The Oregon Flora Project addresses the 4,497 vascular plants of Oregon that grow without cultivation. These include:
We define “native” as a plant that was an element of the Oregon flora prior to European settlement, a recently described taxon found in Oregon, and/or a taxon disjunct in Oregon if it is considered native in a nearby state.
A non-native, or exotic plant is one from distant parts of North America or from other continents that established in Oregon post-European settlement. Examples include weeds, aliens, naturalized escapes, waifs, and ballast plants.
Two categories of non-native plants fall within the scope of the project:
History
The Oregon Flora Project was begun in 1994 by Scott Sundberg as an effort to prepare a new flora of the vascular plants of Oregon. The data which began this work was a checklist of plants compiled by Karl Urban under the guidance of Dr. Kenton Chambers, mainly from floras and literature available in 1989. Work on the Checklist continues to the present, and is now a comprehensive database tracking nomenclature, synonymy, and literature references for all of Oregon’s vascular plants.
The Oregon Plant Atlas was initiated in 1995 as another component of the Oregon Flora Project. This online resource combined base maps created by Jon Kimerling and a Java applet written by Clayton Gautier with a database of plant observations and specimen data to create customized plant distribution maps. The program is unique in its ability to display the details of each plant occurrence mapped. The Atlas received a significant boost in 2001 with a grant from the Bureau of Land Management to add to the database a record for each taxon found in every county. This funding also allowed the hiring of the first staff members, Ann Willyard and Thea Cook. In early 2004, Katie Mitchell was hired to replace Ann, who left the Project to pursue graduate work.
Disseminating the information of the Oregon Flora Project for use by a diverse audience has always been an underlying goal. Collaboration with the Northwest Alliance for Computational Science and Engineering at OSU resulted in the award of a grant (2001-2004) from the National Science Foundation to design and develop software for presenting Oregon Flora Project data online. Through an application referred to as “The Digital Field Guide”, users can select subsets of information and download it to a personal computer or handheld device.
The inclusion of a photo gallery of Oregon plants was a logical addition to the Oregon Flora Project. The Photo Gallery represents a way to engage amateurs in learning about our flora, as well as encouraging participation in a scientific endeavor through the donation of plant images. In 2002 an Images database was developed to capture our cataloguing of slides and digital images as well as the information associated with each image. Photographs of herbarium specimens are also a component of the Photo Gallery. From 2004-2006 Rena Schlachter served as Illustrations editor, overseeing further development of the Images database. This position is currently vacant, pending further support.
Building upon their respective strengths, the OSU Herbarium and the Oregon Flora Project collaborated on a National Science Foundation proposal (2003-2006) to database and georeference label data from all Oregon herbarium specimens not yet included in the Oregon Plant Atlas. The data from the Oregon specimens of the OSU Herbarium are now represented online in the context of both a specimen database and the Oregon Plant Atlas.
In December 2004, the Oregon Flora Project suffered a great loss with the death of its director and founder, Scott Sundberg. The Project continues, however, following a well-planned path to its completion that was Scott’s vision. Linda Hardison has assumed the position of Coordinator, and existing staff members are maintaining their essential roles in the functioning of the Project. Some of the taxonomic decisions that had previously been made by Sundberg (e.g., in the preparation of the Checklist) are being accomplished through consensus of committee members.
Looking ahead
The first decade of the Oregon Flora Project has focused on the creation of an infrastructure for data, as well as the gathering and verification of these data. There are three overarching goals currently before the Oregon Flora Project:
(1) To clarify the organizational infrastructure in order to best achieve our scientific goals. The scope of the Oregon Flora Project has grown beyond the ability of one individual to implement all of its aspects, as Scott Sundberg had done in the Project’s early years. We seek to develop necessary leadership through advisory boards of both a scientific and organizational nature; to develop a funding structure compatible with the services we provide to institutions and the general public, and one that will sustain the Oregon Flora Project in its future; and to establish mutually supportive relationships with universities, governmental agencies, and public/private endeavors.
(2) To present our existing data to the public. As a work-in-progress, the Oregon Flora Project strives to release meaningful subsets of data as they become available. We propose to publish online a working version of the Checklist of Vascular Plants in 2010. We will be releasing a searchable Photo Gallery that includes photographs of herbarium specimens of 2,603 different species, and over 18,000 field photos of plants. Additional support is needed to release a fully functional Digital Field Guide.
(3) To prepare the new Flora of Oregon for both paper and online publication in a timely fashion. Fifteen years of data gathering and analysis have prepared the foundation for a new flora. We are now poised to begin work on this final phase of the Oregon Flora Project. Resources will be solicited to fund the hiring of a systematist to oversee the work, staff support for data management, and the publishing and distribution of the book. With adequate financing, we anticipate the Flora of Oregon in both paper and digital format can be completed in four to six years.
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Project Organization
The Oregon Flora Project team is comprised of a project coordinator, two staff members, student employees, and numerous volunteers. It is guided by 27 volunteer scientists from the Pacific Northwest with expertise in systematics, computer science, cartography, and biogeography.We are housed in the Botany and Plant Pathology Department at Oregon State University (OSU), and interact extensively with the OSU Herbarium.
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Project Associates
The Native Plant Society of Oregon (NPSO) has been a sponsor of the Oregon Flora Project since the Project’s inception in 1994. The Society provides modest financial support, and through the NPSO State Atlas Coordinator, guides the collecting and submittal of plant observation data from NPSO activities to the Project.
Our close ties with the OSU Herbarium are mutually beneficial--the Herbarium excels as a dynamic resource with exceptional depth in its Oregon collections, and the Flora Project enhances their value with careful taxonomic analysis.
The Northwest Alliance for Computational Science and Engineering (NACSE) at OSU leads the software development for the Digital Field Guide presentation of project data. NACSE donates the use of web and database servers to host the Flora Project website and Atlas.
We collaborate with numerous groups: academic institutions (state and private universities, community colleges), federal agencies (US Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management), state organizations (Oregon Natural Heritage Information Center, the Noxious Weed Control Program and the Endangered Plant Program of Oregon Department of Agriculture, Native Plant Society of Oregon), and individuals.
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Funding
Since its inception, approximately half of the funding for the Oregon Flora Project has come from individual private donors or small society grants. Along with these generous donors, support for the Oregon Flora Project has been provided by grants from:
The role of volunteers
Public involvement has been a defining feature of the Oregon Flora Project. Volunteers of all ages, backgrounds, and talents have contributed thousands of hours to the project. We gratefully acknowledge these team members for adding their skills and perspectives to the project.We welcome volunteers to the Oregon Flora Project team. Check here for details.
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