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Flora of the Carolinas, Virginia, and Georgia
by Alan S. Weakley
Current
Status
The publication thirty years ago of the Manual of the Vascular
Flora of the Carolinas, by A.E. Radford, H.E. Ahles, and
C.R. Bell, was a landmark. It was the result of an extraordinary
effort to document the flora of the Carolinas, and after its publication,
the existence of “the Manual” helped
generate an interest in and further studies of the flora of the
region. Since its publication in 1968, many additional species have
been documented as part of the region's flora, additional alien
species have become naturalized, new species have been described,
monographs have given new taxonomic insights into groups, nomenclature
accepted in 1968 has been found to be invalid, new and more reliable
keys have been developed, and systematic treatments have (one hopes)
generally advanced. Increasingly, identification of the flora of
our area (and other states of the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic) by
academic researchers, agency personnel, and advanced amateurs is
hampered by the lack of an up-to-date flora. W ithout such a flora,
identification must involve reference to herbaria and thousands
of monographs, papers, and other floras -- resources not readily
available to many people who need them. The absence in the region
of a single-source modern standard for the systematic treatment,
nomenclature, and identification of the flora compromises scientific
studies, ecological research, and agency inventory, management,
and monitoring of ecosystem and species biodiversity.
Current Status. Since 1990, I (and collaborators)
have been working on a new treatment of the flora of the Carolinas,
Virginia, and Georgia, to fill the need for a new standard reference
to aid in the consistent identification of the flora of the region.
W hile building on the tradition of the Manual,
the Flora is not a revision or second edition;
it takes some different approaches, has features the Manual lacks,
lacks features the Manual has, and has an expanded geographic scope.
Initial draft treatments are now complete for about 90% of families,
genera, and species, based on extensive research in the field, library,
and herbarium. Prior to publication, additional herbarium research
and annotation (based primarily at the UNC Herbarium, but involving
other collections with regional coverage) and field testing will
be completed. This work will of course result in changes to draft
treatments.
The Flora will include treatment of all species
in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia
(the primary flora area), with less detailed treatment of species
occurring east of the Mississippi River and south of the Ohio River
and Mason-Dixon line, excluding Florida (the secondary flora area
of Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, District
of Columbia, M aryland, and Delaware). A selection of taxa
occurring in a tertiary area including southern Pennsylvania,
southern New Jersey, M ississippi,
the Florida Parishes of Louisiana (those east of
the Mississippi River), and northern Florida (especially
the Panhandle and counties adjacent to Georgia) has also been included;
this selection emphasizes native taxa and species believed to be
potentially present in the primary or secondary areas. Approximately
5600 species and infraspecific taxa are recognized for the primary
flora area (Carolinas and Virginia), with an additional 1000 taxa
from the secondary flora area. Approximately 6600 taxa will
be keyed and treated. Originally, Georgia was part of the
secondary flora area, but has been added to the primary area. The
treatments are being revised gradually to reflect this change, and
some process “messiness” will be apparent to the user.
Publication of the first edition is projected to occur in several
years, and to be intermediate in format and content between a “guide”
(such as W offord, Clewell, or W underlin) and a full “manual”
(such as Radford, Ahles, & Bell, Fernald, or G leason &
Cronquist). For instance, full descriptions of each genus and species
will not be included in the first edition, but detailed discussion
of taxonomy, habitats, and rarity, comparison to unrelated but similar
species, extensive bibliography (providing access to systematic,
ecological, and population biology literature), and illustrations
will be included. A “county dot map atlas” for the flora
area is planned (and initial steps are underway), but will be issued
as a separate publication at a later date.
Current review copies are available at any time from the
author (over 1000 have already been distributed). These
are being distributed in order to improve the quality of the formally
published edition, by generating substantial review and comment
prior to publication by a wide variety of users. Copies are provided
at cost of xerox reproduction. The Flora can also be downloaded
in pdf files from the website of the University of North Carolina
Herbarium (www.herbarium.unc.edu).
  
Curriculum North Carolina UNC
In Ecology Botanical Garden Biology Department
University of North Carolina
Herbarium
CB# 3280, Coker Hall
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3280
phone: (919) 962-6931
fax: (919) 962-6930
email: herbarium@bio.unc.edu
Last Updated: 4 March
2005
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