Floral Inventory
Importance / IssuesLava Beds National Monument is a small, semi-arid park in northeast California. The young volcanic landforms of Lava Bed NM create a harsh but varied template for plant life. Lava tube collapse systems, lava outcrops, and cave entrances support an impressive variety of vascular and nonvascular plants. A more comprehensive understanding of the floristic resources of the park is essential for the conservation and management of the park's natural resources. Since the park does not employ a permanent botanist, seasonal employees must familiarize themselves with the flora each year to achieve a variety of park monitoring and management objectives. A current, professional quality flora, with an accurate, user friendly dichotomous key to the park plant species would provide an invaluable tool for seasonal and permanent park employees as well as interested park visitors. The project addresses this need by developing a published flora for Lava Beds National Monument by 2010. |
 ObjectivesThe first objective is to yield a published flora for Lava Beds NM . The flora will contain detailed descriptions of each vascular plant species in the monument, along with information about species distributions and abundance. The second objective is to develop a dichotomous key to distinguish species by floral characters. This key will be included in the published flora. The third objective is to document 90% of the park's vascular plant flora. ParksLava Beds National Monument Project StatusSean Smith, a Botany graduate student at Southern Oregon University (SOU), under guidance from Dr. Steve Jessup (SOU), completed a Master's project in June 2008 to address this need. The draft flora and dichotomous key were completed and the flora for Lava Beds National Monument is now under publication review at Oregon State University. |