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Torrey Botanical Society Torrey Botanical Society The Historical and Extant Vascular Flora of Pelham Bay Park, Bronx County, New York 1947- 1998 Author(s): Robert DeCandido and Eric E. Lamont Source: Journal of the Torrey Botanical Society, Vol. 131, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 2004), pp. 368-386 Published by: Torrey Botanical Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4126941 Accessed: 18/06/2009 03:05 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=tbs. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Torrey Botanical Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of the Torrey Botanical Society. http://www.jstor.org Journal of the Torrey Botanical Society 131(4), 2004, pp. 368-386 The historical and extant vascular flora of Pelham Bay Park, Bronx County, New York 1947-19981 Robert DeCandido2,3 Department of Biology, The City College of the City University of New York, New York, NY 10031 Eric E. Lamont Honorary Research Associate, Institute of Sytematic Botany, The New York Botanical Garden, Bronx, NY 10458 DECANDIDO,R. (Department of Biology, The City College of the City University of New York, New York, NY 10031) AND E. E. LAMONT(Institute of Sytematic Botany, The New York Botanical Garden, Bronx, NY 10458). The historical and extant vascular flora of Pelham Bay Park, Bronx County, New York 1947-1998. J. Torrey Bot. Society 131: 368-386. 2004.-This vascular flora of Pelham Bay Park, Bronx County, New York is based on collections made by H.E. Ahles in 1946-47 and by the authors from March of 1994 through October of 1998. Altogether, 123 families, 471 genera and 956 species are reported here. Of these 956 species, 583 (61.0%) are native, 321 (33.6%) non-native and 52 (5.4%) either planted or introduced and not spreading to any degree. The largest families were the Asteraceae (120 species) and the Poaceae (106 species), and the largest genera were Carex, Polygonum and Aster. The park's current flora is analyzed by habitat and four plant com- munities are described and discussed. Most of the extant plant species diversity occurs in two habitats: 255 species were found primarily in the woodland community, and 288 species usually occurred in the grassland/ meadow community. According to current criteria in New York, 27 native species collected in 1994-98 are considered uncommon, rare, threatened or endangered in the state. The most pernicious non-native species that occur in PBPK are: Acer platanoides, Alliaria petiolata, Ampelopsis brevipedunculata, and Rhamnus frangula. The future of the remaining natural areas of Pelham Bay Park will depend upon the degree biologists make people aware of the significant plant species diversity remaining in New York City's second largest park. Key words: Flora, urban, Pelham Bay Park, New York City, plant communities, H. E. Ahles. Pelham Bay Park (PBPK), Bronx County, 1958, Kaltman 1968). Fortunately, there still re- New York is located along the southwestern main several natural areas representing a diver- shore of the Long Island Sound (40' 52' 30" N, sity of habitats of the region. 730 47' 30" W), north of Manhattan and south PBPK is mostly isolated from the surrounding of New Rochelle, Westchester County. At communities by several large water bodies and 1119.4 hectares, it is the second largest park in roadways, including the Long Island Sound, New York City, and the largest under the juris- Hutchinson River, and the New England Thru- diction of the New York City Department of way (Figure 1). The park is heavily used by the Parks and Recreation. The park was established public from June through August, but, except for in 1884 through the efforts of the New Parks areas immediately adjacent to the water, the nat- Movement (Schnitz and Loeb 1984). Since the ural areas are not as frequently visited. The only 1930's, numerous development projects have previous extensive plant survey of PBPK was transformed much of the park (see Monachino conducted in 1946-47 by Harry E. Ahles. (For a brief biography of H. E. Ahles, see Tippo 1Funding for this research came from the City of 1982.) In his two-year field study of PBPK, Ah- New York Department of Parks and Recreation and the les collected 1531 specimens, eventually donat- Bobolink Foundation. ing these to the New York State Museum, but 2 This is dedicatedto the late Jess Hanks of paper his research PBPK has been the City College of New York (CUNY), since he en- in only analyzed couraged everyone to take an active interest in the lo- recently (DeCandido 2001). Ahles never pub- cal flora. Howard Becker of the Bronx accompanied lished any papers based on collections he made the senior author on plant collecting forays from 1994- at PBPK, and published only one that in- 1998. We thank him for his effort and paper indefatiguable from the Bronx Ahles friendship. We also want to thank Andrew M. Greller, corporated specimens (see Professor Emeritus of Botany, Queens College 1951). (CUNY) for his encouragement and thoughtful sug- Landform in PBPK was largely determined by gestions. several glacial flows during the Pleistocene Pe- 3 Present Address: International Bird Cen- Research riod. Evidence for these in the is ter, Eilat, Israel; E-mail: [email protected] glaciers park Received for publication March 1, 2002, and in re- in the form of roche moutonees, rock erratics, vised form February 11, 2004. striae and groove markings. The underlying ge- 368 2004] DECANDIDOAND LAMONT:FLORA OF PELHAMBAY PARK 369 ~7A Westchester- X. ... County r?X.:? ?~ ~ r~? N-0:9:0* '*' 0:A-X? ?':~~T :% fL z ? .?~i 0P ?04`09*00. ?,, , _ &:0a0 . 90-0 V d,"ov cl Islands*' 6 'Iles r?s r r0 CC 3`r? 4% X, ?? S~?Qr ~?*I1??~???a aaa I a*:.:- :? r ? ? ?,? r dx a-S?~l i~ ~1 i, :IL .??_rl+Orchard: X? ~ ~ ~ . r?-- ?r-'~?'''5 Xi???~. .??~.????Long ~-o ~ - go,...9 . .0 *0 a .0 0 ? r X.: Lin' fillI~GI %a:. 5 ~ ~ ??;-?? sad -a-.."lllsanl 0:0:0 Woo 9 `r 000 Pelha Par ,r~??rc~r, --.-%a0. ~ Bay ago _. ???--)??~ r.I..~.. Marsh.. ,?.~Salt Meado CL ? ''?'?'rr'? iI Woodland?~ *~.Recreation~?r ?? ?I?~.~?~l~t.??Developed~t Eastchster By 0 60 12001800 200 ft j ???~??? I? FIG.1. Map of Pelham Bay Park,Bronx County,New York City showing the differenthabitats of the park. ology of PBPK is primarily metamorphic in or- land use exists in the form of recovered Indian igin and includes felsic gneisses, sillimanite artifacts as well as oyster and clam middens, schists and amphibolites, with extensive veins of remnants of which can still be found today (Bol- quartz (Schubert 1968, Leveson and Seyfert ton 1922, Kaeser 1970). Recovered Zea mays 1969). These rocks are classified as part of the pollen indicates that Native Americans were uti- Hutchinson River Group that is correlative with lizing PBPK at least by 1175 A.D., ? 100 years the Hartland Formation of western Connecticut (Loeb 1998a). From 1888-1934, much of the and southeastern New York (Merguerian and park remained an open canopy woodland and Sanders 1993). grassland, since trees were selectively removed Pre-historical evidence of Native American by the City of New York Department of Parks 370 JOURNALOF THE TORREYBOTANICAL SOCIETY [VOL. 131 and Recreation from Hunter Island and other ar- October, from 1994 to 1998 (inclusive) for a to- eas of PBPK (Loeb 1998b). Other more grand- tal of at least 200 field days over five years by scale projects, such as those undertaken by the the senior author. The park was walked for about WPA in the 1930s, changed water flow patterns five hours each visit, in such a way that all areas through the larger salt marshes and even some of the park were sampled at least every other of the woodlands of PBPK. From 1934-1948, week. Voucher specimens of each taxon with the New York City Department of Parks under collection notes were deposited at the New York the direction of Robert Moses made significant State Museum in Albany in 1999. These voucher changes to the park by filling in the original Pel- specimens have since been transferred to the ham Bay for use as a parking lot, creating Or- Brooklyn Botanic Garden. chard Beach (Caro 1974). Beginning in 1964, The plant specimens of PBPK that H.E. Ahles approximately 105 acres in the southern portion collected in 1946-1947, and now held at the of the park were taken over by the Department New York State Museum at Albany, were ex- of Sanitation and converted to a landfill (Kalt- amined along with his field notes for those two man 1968).
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