Floristic Studies

What is a Flora?

A floristic study documents all the plant species found within a specific geographical area. Some ambitious, large-scale floristic projects produce identification keys, detailed descriptions, and illustrations for the plants. Others may simply generate a list of the species found in an area. Examples of large-scale floras include the Flora of North America and the ongoing effort to create the Flora of Virginia. The Digital Atlas of Virginia Flora is another resource, offering county-by-county distribution maps for all plant species found in Virginia.

WILLI Floristic Studies

WILLI holds voucher specimens from over 29 floras produced by students and faculty of the College of William and Mary. Each of these studies typically documents around 600 plant species; about 20 percent are often new records for that county. Examples of William & Mary floras include the Flora of the College Woods (Barans 1969) and the Vascular Flora of the Corrotoman River Watershed (Weldy 1995). More recently, Chris Johnstone collected and identified specimens and wrote A Flora of Totuskey Creek, Richmond County, Virginia (2008). Totuskey Creek is located on the “Northern Neck” peninsula in the Virginia Coastal Plain, between the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers. In the summer of 2013, graduate student Caitlin Cyrus began working with Sarah Stefan (W&M '15) and Gus Tate (W&M '15) to document changes in the College Woods flora that have occurred since the surveys by Barans in 1969 and Crouch in 1990.

WILLI is currently processing specimens for a floristic study of the Willcox Run watershed in Petersburg, Virginia, with Donna M. E. Ware, WILLI's first Curator. This study was inspired by her work consulting for the book With Paintbrush & Shovel (Kober 2000), which features watercolors based on plant collections from a WPA project in Lee Park in the 1930s. Dr. Ware’s first collection from this study was placed in the Lee Park Herbarium, curated by the Petersburg Garden Club. WILLI will house duplicates from that collection.

References

Barans, A. C. Phillips. 1969. Vascular flora of the College Woods, the College of William and Mary, James City County, Virginia. MA thesis.

Kober, N. 2000. With Paintbrush & Shovel: Preserving Virginia's Wildflowers / Watercolors by Bessie Niemeyer Marshall. University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA.

Weldy, T. W. 1995. The vascular flora of the Corrotoman River watershed, Lancaster County, Virginia. MS thesis.