8 years of plant species check lists

Since the rain is keeping me inside, I am doing more work on my 2009 field data for Pleasant Valley Conservancy. The table below is a summary of 8 years of plant species check lists. It gives the number of new species found each year, and the total number of species.

Reasonably, as the years go by I am finding fewer and fewer new species. I am probably getting better at identifying plants, and keeping better records. The marked increase in new species in 2007 was because that was the year we hired Josh Sulman to do some detailed work on sedges and other wetland plants.

I found only four new species during the 2009 field season, two of which we had planted: Helianthus occidentalis (western sunflower) and Senecio aureus (golden ragwort). The other two were spontaneous. One was Scutellaria parvula (small skullcap), a tiny purple-flowered plant that we found on the dry sandy south-facing slope (especially in Unit 6). According to Cochrane and Iltis, this species is common on dry habitats in the Driftless Area, which is right where I found it.

The other new species (see photo below) was the spectacular lesser purple prairie-fringed orchid (Platanthera psycodes), which we did not plant. It popped up spontaneously in the Valley Prairie (which we did plant). My explanation is that this orchid is living somewhere else in the wetland or wet-mesic area of our marsh, and managed to work its way into a similar habitat in the Valley Prairie. Although not rare or endangered, it is not especially common in Wisconsin. Now that we know we have it, we can look more carefully in suitable sites on the Conservancy. According to the Orchids of Wisconsin (Hapeman, UW-Madison Department of Botany), this species is probably the most beautiful orchid in the Wisconsin flora.

The year 2010 may be the year I quit taking detailed field notes of plants, since I have obviously reached the limit in finding new species at Pleasant Valley Conservancy. I'll take a copy of the 8-year check list with me (probably in a portable computer) and use that to cross check anything I think might be new. With 488 species, it is difficult to remember whether you have seen something before.