![]() |
Herbarium Projects | ||
|
Current floristic projects at UCR include the Flora of the San Bernardino Mountains (California), a Checklist of western Riverside County, and a floristic Inventory of the Curú Biological Reserve on the Nicoya Peninsula (Costa Rica). The San Bernardino Mountains flora is nearing completion, but quite a number of records still need to be checked for specific data points that are not in the current manuscript. This missing data includes such things as collection numbers and elevations. The computerization of the UCR inventory is being quite helpful for all these projects. These projects are all part of the general effort to describe, explore and document the biodiversity of the world vegetation. The flora of the planet is still very poorly known, even in "well studied" areas such as California, as is illustrated by the discovery of new plant species in California at the rate of 10 or so a year. Furthermore, there is also a continuous rain of propagules of alien plant species. Some of these become established and spread widely in the natural environment of southern California, displacing native plants as they expand. Native species may also change their ranges over time, due to other environmental alterations, such as climate change. Herbarium specimens often provide the only record of these changes. Examples of the result of this on-going efforts include:
|
||
If you have additional information that you would like to see on this web site, please contact Andrew.Sanders ![]() |
|||