Plants

IS THIS PLANT NATIVE?

Posted by Terri Litchfield on

Ask The Biota of North America Program, www.bonap.org

We’ll leave the subject of how we define native for another post. (At Catchfly Commons, we don’t necessarily base “native” on state boundaries.)

BONAP is a go-to site for determining the distribution of plants1. If you’ve clicked on RANGE MAP on a prairiemoon.com plant page for example, you’ll recognize the BONAP map. Many other organizations, from plant nurseries to academic institutions, are also users of BONAP.

GENERA WITHIN FAMILY

In addition to finding the native range of a species, BONAP is a useful tool for searches, such as determining genera within a family. The Taxonomic Data Center Query2 page has search boxes for family, genus, and species. For example, there are 86 genera listed within the mint family (Lamiaceae).

Mint family plants at Catchfly Commons by genus and common name of species:

  • Agastache: Anise Hyssop
  • Blephilia: Downy Woodmint; Hairy Woodmint
  • Clinopodium: Wild Basil
  • Monarda: Basil Bee Balm; Bradbury’s Monarda; Lemon Bee Balm; Scarlet Bee Balm; Spotted Bee Balm; Wild Bergamot (See Monarda blog post.)
  • Physostegia: Obedient Plant
  • Prunella: Selfheal
  • Pycnanthemum: Narrow Leaf Mountain Mint; Short-toothed Mountain Mint; Virginia Mountain Mint
  • Salvia: Blue Sage; Lyreleaf Sage; Scarlet Sage
SPECIES WITHIN GENERA

To quickly find the species within a given genus which are native to a given state:

  • Home page / List Plants by Genera – find the genus
  • Scroll through U.S. maps to see the distribution of the species.

For example: Salvias native to Ohio include: Blue Sage, Lyreleaf Sage, Mealycup Sage and Scarlet Sage, plus a couple of species completely unfamiliar to us: Salvia reflexa (Lanceleaf Sage) and Salvia urticifolia (Nettle-leaf Sage).

Scarlet Sage grows as an annual in our landscape and reseeds dependably year after year. Only upon researching salvias for this post did we realize it’s a native plant. We always enjoyed it in the landscape because the hummingbirds love it, and now we know that it truly belongs here.

1 Kartesz, J.T., The Biota of North America Program (BONAP). 2015. North American Plant Atlas. (http://bonap.net/napa). Chapel Hill, N.C. [maps generated from Kartesz, J.T. 2015. Floristic Synthesis of North America, Version 1.0. Biota of North America Program (BONAP). (in press)].

2 Kartesz, J.T., The Biota of North America Program (BONAP). 2015. Taxonomic Data Center. (http://www.bonap.net/tdc). Chapel Hill, N.C. [maps generated from Kartesz, J.T. 2015. Floristic Synthesis of North America, Version 1.0. Biota of North America Program (BONAP). (in press)]

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