Pittsburg State University Pittsburg State University Digital Commons Electronic Thesis Collection Summer 7-1-2018 Floristic Survey Of Crawford And Cherokee Counties In Southeast Kansas: An Evaluation Of Change Over Five Decades Samantha Pryer Pittsburg State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.pittstate.edu/etd Part of the Biology Commons, Botany Commons, and the Plant Biology Commons Recommended Citation Pryer, Samantha, "Floristic Survey Of Crawford And Cherokee Counties In Southeast Kansas: An Evaluation Of Change Over Five Decades" (2018). Electronic Thesis Collection. 256. https://digitalcommons.pittstate.edu/etd/256 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Pittsburg State University Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis Collection by an authorized administrator of Pittsburg State University Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FLORISTIC SURVEY OF CRAWFORD AND CHEROKEE COUNTIES IN SOUTHEAST KANSAS: AN EVALUATION OF CHANGE OVER FIVE DECADES A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate School in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science Samantha Lauren Young Pryer Pittsburg State University Pittsburg, Kansas May 2018 FLORISTIC SURVEY OF CRAWFORD AND CHEROKEE COUNTIES IN SOUTHEAST KANSAS: AN EVALUATION OF CHANGE OVER FIVE DECADES Samantha Lauren Young Pryer APPROVED: Thesis Advisor _______________________________________________ Dr. Neil Snow, Department of Biology Committee Member ____________________________________________ Dr. Hermann Nonnenmacher, Department of Biology Committee Member _____________________________________________ Dr. Kristopher Mijares, Department of Chemistry ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First, I would like to thank all of the landowners who allowed me to do work on their properties and the people who helped me find properties and making contact with local landowners. In particular Janice Harryman, whose help was invaluable in this regard. Special thanks go to Cindy and John Epler, John Foster, Glenn Salsbury, and Bill Reid who helped immensely in showing me around and helping locate properties for research. Without these individuals, this project would never have been possible. Thanks to the Missouri Botanical Garden for use of their Missouri and Illinois Reference Collection as well as the space and tools to help confirm identifications. And also, Jim Solomon and Mary McNamara for making these visits possible. A special thanks also, to Dr. John Pruski who helped identify a difficult specimen and Ron Liesner for helping with family and generic identifications. I would like to extend a huge thank you to Craig Freeman and Caleb Morse for allowing me to report their state record specimens as well as for use of the McGregor Herbarium for help in identification confirmation. And also, a big thank you to Caleb Morse for compiling a list of specimens located in McGregor Herbarium for Crawford and Cherokee counties. This project would not have been possible without the assistance and list of taxa provided by John Kartesz. In addition, Biota of North America (BONAP) was an invaluable tool in this work. A special thank you to American Society of Plant Taxonomists for helping fund this projecect. I am grateful to the committee members, Dr. Hermann Nonnenmacher and Dr. Kris Mijares for their willingness to review this thesis. I am immensely grateful to my advisor, Dr. Neil Snow, for his support and continual guidance. He provided help and guidance throughout this project in so many ways, from helping collect, to identifying difficult specimens, confirming state records, and feedback. Not to mention, of course, the many hours of conversation throughout the years. His instruction, feedback, and example have improved this thesis and have made me a better scientist. Finally, I would like to extend a special thank you to my mother, Irene Young, for her unwavering love and support and for encouraging my passions, even at a young age. I would never have reached this point in my life without her. And also, of course, a big thank you to my husband, Lucas Pryer for his daily support and encouragement through this journey. iii FLORISTIC SURVEY OF CRAWFORD AND CHEROKEE COUNTIES IN SOUTHEAST KANSAS: AN EVALUATION OF CHANGE OVER FIVE DECADES An Abstract of the Thesis by Samantha Lauren Young Pryer This project had two main objectives. The first objective was to document comprehensively the vascular flora of Crawford and Cherokee counties in extreme southeast Kansas. Each county had seen limited collecting in recent decades, though a comprehensive survey had never been done for Cherokee County. PSU student E.S. Gibson summarized the flora for Crawford County in 1963. Fieldwork for the present study occurred mostly in 2014 and 2015. Based on 6500+ newly collected specimens, vouchers from Gibson’s study, and taxa documented by Biota of North America (BONAP) (Kartesz 2017), 1440 taxa are reported, which includes 33 state and 263 county records. The number of records was significantly more than expected. These results, coupled with other recent floristic studies nationally, indicate that current plant distributions in many parts of North America at the state and county levels are less thoroughly documented than many believe. The second objective was to make a five- decade comparison between the taxa Gibson (1963) reported for Crawford County and the values reported here. Its goal was to document changes in vascular plant diversity and report on native and non-native plant species that have moved into the area. The amount of taxonomic and nomenclatural change that has affected vascular plants in Crawford County was assessed. The total vouchered taxa for Crawford County increased by 32.6%, 24.4% of which were native and 8.1% non-native. In the nomenclatural comparison, a 22.6% change in binomial species names was documented. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE …...…………………………………...... 1 II. INTRODUCTION ……..……………………………………………...…… 13 Floristic Survey ……………………………………………………....… 13 Crawford County Comparison ....……...………………………..……… 15 Study Objectives …………………...…………………………………... 16 Study Area ……………………………………………………..……… 17 Climate …………………………………………………………………. 17 Geography ……………………………………………………………… 18 Ozark Plateau …………………………………………..………. 19 Cherokee Lowlands ……………………………………………. 19 Osage Cuestas ………………………………………………….. 20 Land Use ...…………………………………………………...………… 20 Soils …………………………………………………………..……...… 22 III. MATERIALS AND METHODS .………………………………..………… 23 Collecting and Processing ………………………….………………...… 23 Identification of Plant Specimens ……………………………………… 26 Analysis ………………………………………………………….…...… 29 Reporting ……...............................................……………………………31 Taxonomic Comparison with the Results of Gibson ………………...… 31 Nomenclatural Comparison with the Results of Gibson ……………….. 32 IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: FLORA. …………………….…………... 34 Taxonomic Summary ……………………………………………….….. 34 Non-Native and Invasive Taxa ……………………………………...…. 35 Rare and Species of Special Concern ………………………………..… 37 New Records for Kansas ………………………………………...……... 38 Range Expansions …………………………………………….………... 39 Extirpated taxa ……………………………………………………….… 43 Exclusions …………………………………………………………….... 43 Identification Notes …………………………………………………..… 44 Flora Conclusion …………………………………………………….…. 46 V. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: GIBSON COMPARISON ……………… 49 v Comparison of Gibson’s List of taxa for Crawford County with the Current List……............………………………………………………... 49 Taxonomic Comparison and Discussion ..………...………...…………. 51 Nomenclatural Comparison and Discussion ………………………….... 54 VI. FUTURE WORK ........................................................................................... 58 REFERENCES .……………………………………………………………………………………………..…… 59 APPENDICES………………………………………………………………………….. 73 APPENDIX A – Flora Tables ……………………………………..…… 74 APPENDIX B – Gibson Tables………………………………………… 78 APPENDIX C – Mis-Identified taxa for Gibson …………..……………81 APPENDIX D – Annotated Checklist………………………………….. 83 APPENDIX E – Updated Modern List of Gibson’s Taxa with Current Nomenclature……………………...…………………………………... 153 vi LIST OF TABLES I. Summary Table ........................................................................................................................ 74 II. Extirpated Taxa ........................................................................................................................ 74 III. State Records ............................................................................................................................ 75 IV. Noxious Taxa ............................................................................................................................. 76 V. Crawford County Summary ................................................................................................ 78 VI. Missing Vouchers for Gibson .............................................................................................. 78 VII. Mis-Identified Gibson Vouchers ....................................................................................... 80 VIII. Modern List of Gibson Taxa ............................................................................................. 153 vii LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE ……………………………………………………………………………. PAGE 1. KANSAS COUNTIES MAP …...……………………………………………... 17 2. PHYSIOGRAPHIC MAP OF KANSAS……………………………………….. 17 viii CHAPTER I. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE The collection,