Great Basin Naturalist Memoirs Volume 9 A Utah Flora Article 1 1-1-1987 Introduction Stanley L. Welsh Monte L. Bean Life Science Museum and Department of Botany and Range Science, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah 84602 N. Duane Atwood USDA Forest Service, Intermountain Region, Ogden, Utah 84401 Sherel Goodrich Intermountain Forest and Range Experiment Station, Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Ogden, Utah 84401 Larry C. Higgins Herbarium, Department of Biology, West Texas State University, Canyon, Texas 79016 Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/gbnm Part of the Anatomy Commons, Botany Commons, Physiology Commons, and the Zoology Commons Recommended Citation Welsh, Stanley L.; Atwood, N. Duane; Goodrich, Sherel; and Higgins, Larry C. (1987) "Introduction," Great Basin Naturalist Memoirs: Vol. 9 , Article 1. Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/gbnm/vol9/iss1/1 This Chapter is brought to you for free and open access by the Western North American Naturalist Publications at BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Basin Naturalist Memoirs by an authorized editor of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Great Basin Naturalist Memoirs A Utah Flora Stanley L. Welsh', N. Duane Atwood", Sherel Goodrich^, and Larry C. Higgins^, editors No. 9 Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah 1987 Abstract — A comprehensive treatment of the vascular flora of Utah is presented. Keys are provided to famihes, genera, species, and infraspecific taxa (when present). Taxa are described, ecological data is given, and geographical information is provided. County distribution in Utah is given for each species and infraspecific taxon General geographical information is given for taxa that extend beyond the boundaries of Utah. Chromosome numbers are provided for each taxon, where that information was available in literature Indigenous taxa include some 2,572 species and 355 infraspecific taxa, or a total of 2,927. Introduced species number some 580. and the total taxa treated in the flora is 3,507. New nomenclatural proposals include Mertensia lanceolata var. nivalis (Wats.) Higginsstat. nov. ; C/irysot/iamnosnauseosus (Pallas) H, &C. var. uintahensis (L. C. Anderson) Welsh stat. nov.; Mac/ia?ran(/ieracanexccn.s(Pursh) Cray var. latifolia (A. Nels.) Welsh stat. nov., and var. aristatus (Eastw.) Turner comb, nov.; Vif;,uiera longffolia (Robins. & Greenm.) Blake var annua (Jones) Welsh comb. nov. ; Dudleya pulverulenta (Nutt. ) Britt. & Rose var. arizonica (Rose) Welsh stat. nov. ; Cordytanthun kintlii Wats. var. densiflorus (Chuang & Heckard) Atwood stat. nov ; Cymopterus acaulis (Pursh) Raf. var. fendteri (Gray) Goodrich comb. nov. INTRODUCTION Stanley L. Welsh Historical Basis Thus, the present work is not only a fruition of the years of labor by its editors and contributors, but it represents the culmination of than Study of Utah flora began in September 1843, when John more a century and four decades of exploration collection Charles Fremont took the first plant collections from the and of the plants of Utah. Begin- region later included within the state (Fremont 1845). In the ning with Fremont, the exploration has gone foreward to late 1860s Sereno Watson collected in Utah and Nevada and the present, not in a steady rate but at a varied one as the authored the most important contribution to the understand- personnel involved have waxed and waned. Hundreds of ing of Utah flora in the 19th century (Watson 1871). His work collectors have contributed specimens that form the basis was used by such important Utah botanists as Marcus E. of this flora. The few specimens taken by Fremont repre- Jones, who published an important summary treatment of his sent only a very small but significant part of the tremen- own 1894 fieldwork in 1895 (Welsh 1982a). A. O. Garrett dous number of collections made in the intervening vears (Welsh (1909 and subsequent) published the Spring Flora of the 1986). Wasatch Region early in the 20th century, which was used by Perhaps 400,000 specimens from Utah reside within generations of students to as late as midcentury. His work the herbaria of the state, and possibly almost that many stimulated the subsequent publication of other local floras, more examples from Utah are present in herbaria else- including the Handbook of the Vascular Plants of the North- where. More than a thousand type specimens have been ern Wasatch by Holmgren (1948, 1957), and the Flora of the taken from within Utah (Welsh 1982a). There has been a Central Wasatch Front, Utah bv Arnow, Albee, and Wvcoff renaissance within classical plant taxonomy in Utah dur- (1977, 1980). ing the past three decades. That rebirth of taxonomic Tidestrom (1925) wrote a summary treatment of the flora of emphasis was involved with the improvement in trans- Utah and Nevada, which has long been out of print and badly portation and accessibility of Utah, in the increased num- dated by changes in nomenclature and new information. ber of personnel, in the devotion of those persons, in the Welsh and Moore (1973) attempted a more comprehensive environmental movement aided by federal laws, and in an treatment of the Utah flora. Their work involved some 2,500 increased emphasis for production of state and regional taxa and included all of Utah. floras. Life Science Museum and Department of Botany and Range Science, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah 84602. "USDA Forest Service, Intermountain Region, Ogden, Utah 84401. Intermountain Forest and Range Experiment Station, Forest Service, U.S. Department of .\griculture. Ogden, Utah 84401. Present addr Ranger District, Ashley National Forest, Vernal, Utah 84078. Herbarium. Department of Biology, West Texas State University, Canyon. Texas. 79016 . Great Basin Naturalist Memoirs No. 9 A flora of the Uinta Basin has been prepared by Sherel phytochemistry, breeding mechanisms, and other items Goodrich and EUzabeth Neese, and its pubhcation is important to its interpretation. anticipated in 1986. An atlas of distibution maps of Utah Simple recombinant types should not be taken for taxa plant species has been prepared by Beverly Albee and necessarily. Such unrelated examples might well appear Leila Shultz, and it is expected to be published shortly. again and again within a group, and keys written to such plants will provide means of identification of these recom- Philosophical Basis and Species Concept l)inant types, but do they represent taxa? Therein lies perhaps the greatest dilemma of plant classification, i.e., The underlying principle in this work is reality and its the taxonomic character should reflect relationship, not representation as nearly as possible. Reality is inter- haphazard trivial preted differently by each worker, of course, and one's merely a recombination of features, but the pursuit of the truly reflective characteristics is often concept of reality changes as new information is forthcom- merely an ideal. ing. Taxonomic concepts in this work are derived from the study of the plants themselves, both in the herbarium and Ideally, taxonomic treatments represent a translation in the field. All contributors to the taxonomic text are of the reality of nature into graphic representation. Diffi- familiar with the plants as they occur in nature, and that culty arises, and taxonomists are held in disrepute, when reverse familiarity is transferred to the plants as they exist on they try to the situation by imposing a system of herbarium sheets. In the natural context plant taxa occur their own creation onto the plants as they are in the real in correlation with geography, geology, and climatic or world. positional factors. The correlations are important in de- And, the flora is only imperfectly understood. Many of termination of the nature of the taxon, and it is to these the plant taxa are known from a few collections only, and it correlations that we have looked for understanding. The is impossible to represent them beyond the limits of the juxtaposition of taxa in the field (or the lack thereof) forms information available. Many taxa have been discovered another parameter that must be determined, because recently and we know nothing of their chromosome com- many of the taxa form morphological intermediates when pliments, breeding mechanisms, and other features. in contact. Hybridization and its potential must be re- They occur in the treatments presented below as best as garded in taxonomic decisions. Presence of cleistogamy possible, but modification and reinterpretation will follow and apomixis within a group or complex must be consid- the accumulation of other data. Other workers will evalu- ered. Other representations of reality, the floras, revi- ate the same data differently, resulting in the presenta- sions, and monographs must be studied to supplement tion of restructured taxonomic opinions. Some will wish the information gained from field and herbarium studies. to dissect the genera into ever smaller units, based on Thus, taxonomic concepts in this work are derived both various tangible and intangible features, as if such re- from the study of the plants themselves and from the structuring was of tremendous importance. All presenta- works of other students of the flora. tions will be based in fact, as the worker will interpret that All indigenous plant species known to occur in Utah are fact, but the weighting of the data and the biases of the included in the flora. Introduced plants are also covered, worker will determine, in some part, the presentation but not so intensively as are the native ones. Plant tax- followed. onomists have been conditioned to work with the indige- Prior to the present manuscript, which is acknowl- nous plants alone, often to the exclusion of introduced edged beforehand as imperfect and stained with the bi- ones. The introduced taxa are, however, a portion of the ases of its authors, routine identification of a collection of flora of the state and cannot be ignored. Many are estab- plants from anywhere in Utah has involved the use of as lished within native or human-induced habitats.