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Floristic Quality Assessment for Plant Communities of
North Dakota, South Dakota (excluding the Black Hills),
and Adjacent Grasslands

Appendix

Here we provide a listing of the vascular plant taxa of North and South Dakota (excluding the Black Hills) with our recommended coefficients of conservatism (C). The listing of taxa in our checklist is not intended to serve as an exhaustive flora of the region; we developed this listing for the primary purpose of facilitating use of floristic quality assessment in the Dakotas and adjacent grasslands. For ease of use, we followed the botanical nomenclature provided in our regions most widely used flora, Flora of the Great Plains (Great Plains Flora Association 1991). The listing is sorted alphabetically by scientific name. Native taxa are italicized while non-native taxa are capitalized and also identified by an asterisk in the C column.

Each taxon has been designated a physiognomic grouping (i.e., fern, grass, sedge, forb, vine, shrub, tree). The grasses, sedges and forbs are further identified as annuals (A), biennials (B), or perennials (P) and the vines as herbaceous (H) or woody (W). Although these designations sometimes imperfectly depict the habit of a plant taxon and are subject to interpretation, they can be useful in identifying structural differences or changes in a plant community.

To further aid the application of floristic quality assessment in the Dakotas, we provide a 6-letter acronym for each taxon. The acronym is formed from the first three letters of the genus followed by the first three letters of the species or by the first two letters of the species and the first letter of the subspecies. In cases where duplicate acronyms result, we provide a nonintuitive acronym. To avoid excessive duplication in the Carex genus we used CX followed by the first four letters of the species for members of this genus.

NOTE: A "Searchable Database" and an "Entry Submission Form" are currently in development and will be made available in an upcoming update of this resource. (In order to search the current version, use the in-page "Find" command from the Edit menu of your browser)
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