Locality: (38.722060, -109.561460)
Abstract: In 2005–2006, the National Park Service’s Northern Colorado Plateau Network received funding to develop a revised checklist of the vascular plant flora of Arches National Park. This entailed a thorough review of existing literature, re-examination of specimens from the Arches National Park herbarium and other state and national museum collections, and additional field work to corroborate unverified species reports or locate new species. Based on this study, 522 vascular plant taxa have been confirmed or reliably reported as occuring in the park (485 are known from validated herbarium specimens and 37 from unvouchered literature reports). Another 50 species formerly considered part of the park flora have now been shown to be falsely reported. The current flora of Arches National Park represents 14.5% of the known flora of Utah, and 30.8% of the flora of the Colorado Plateau ecoregion within Utah. At least 30 of these species are considered species of concern by the state natural heritage program. Introduced plants make up 14.4% of the park flora (75 species), of which six species are considered noxious weeds by the State of Utah. Further surveys in Arches National Park are likely to find additional new species (146 are known from similar habitats outside the park boundary), especially among late flowering, weedy, or wetland taxa.
Notes: 76,679 Acres
