A Floristic Inventory of Vermejo Park Ranch, New Mexico and Colorado

Download or read book A Floristic Inventory of Vermejo Park Ranch, New Mexico and Colorado written by Ben S. Legler and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A vascular plant inventory of Vermejo Park Ranch in north central New Mexico and south central Colorado was completed during the summers of 2007, 2008, and 2009. The study area covers ca. 584,000 acres (912 mi2), and includes portions of the Sangre de Cristo Range and Park Plateau in Colfax, Costilla, Las Animas, and Taos counties. The elevation ranges from 5,830 to 12,931 feet, encompassing a diversity of habitats from plains-mesa grassland to alpine. A total of 7,503 collections were obtained from 708 sites, documenting 1,112 unique taxa (species, infraspecies, and hybrids) in 93 families. Included in the total are 112 exotics (10.1% of the flora), 21 of which are designated as noxious weeds. Also documented were 24 species of conservation concern, 26 first reports or confirmations for New Mexico, three New Mexico endemics, and two novelties. The novelties, a Phlox and Botrychium, will be published elsewhere. The core of the thesis consists of a voucher-based annotated checklist and discussions of taxa of special interest. A system for data collection using a handheld computer is discussed, as are topography, geology, soils, climate, vegetation, human history, and land use. Floristic comparisons were performed, and an estimate of inventory completeness was calculated. A complete set of vouchers has been deposited at the Rocky Mountain Herbarium with duplicates provided to the ranch and distributed to regional herbaria.