CEMML Floristics Services

The CEMML floristics lab offers a wide variety of Botanical services to governmental and private agencies. Following is a brief summary of those services. If you have questions or need further information about these services, please contact Nancy Hastings at (970) 491-2089 or Nancy.Hastings@ColoState.EDU .

Floristics Surveys | T&E / Rare Plants Surveys | Plant ID and Taxonomy

Plant Lamination | Specimen Mounting | Mitigation Studies | Database Management

Floristic Surveys

CEMML has conducted over 30 floristics surveys for military installations throughout North America, Hawaii, and Europe. Although our work has largely been conducted at military installations, we are prepared to conduct or assist in surveys for other federal agencies (USDA, USDI, etc.), state agencies, or private conservation organizations. These surveys range greatly in scope from initial surveys conducted for plot-based studies, to full-scale floristics inventories for large installations (> 100,000 hectares) like Fort Benning, Georgia and Fort Hunter-Liggett, California. We have worked in most major North American biomes and have extensive in-house botanical experience. Our work has been geographically and ecologically diverse, including research in the following areas:

• Northern Hardwoods, Fort Drum, Upstate New York
• Eastern Hardwoods, Fort Ritchie, Maryland
• Southern Hardwoods, Fort Benning, Georgia
• Dry and Wet Tropical Forests, Hawaii
• Sonoran Desert, Arizona and California
• Coastal Chaparrel/Scrub, Fort Hunter-Liggett, California
• Mohave Desert, Nellis AFB, Nevada
• Coastal Coniferous Forests, Fort Lewis, Washington
• Shortgrass Steppe, F.E. Warren AFB, Wyoming, Camp Guernsey, Wyoming, and Fort Carson,Colorado

Threatened, Endangered, and Sensitive/Rare Plant Surveys

Botanists at CEMML have conducted extensive surveys for plant species with federal, state, or local regulatory status. In our work in Hawaii, our laboratory supervisor, Patricia Douglas, with the support of other CEMML botanists, has located populations of several plant species that were previously thought to be extinct or had not been seen or collected for decades. Data collected by CEMML botanists has contributed to the de-listing of some plant species, range extensions, state and county records, and fundamental research on others. To see photographs of some of these species, please check out our Photo Gallery.

Plant Identification and Taxonomy

CEMML botanists provide services to traditional CEMML clients as well as to local and regional organizations such as the Cooperative Extension Service and various law enforcement agencies. For traditional floristics inventories, CEMML botanists either travel onsite to collect specimens, or work with specimens that are collected by clients. These specimens are identified later in the CEMML laboratory. Identification is accomplished using regional floras and monographs. These taxa are then taken to Rocky Mountain Herbarium (RM), University of Wyoming, Laramie for verification. RM includes the national U.S. Forest Service Herbarium (USFS) and contains taxa from much of the North American continent and Hawaii. In the event this herbarium does not have adequate specimens, taxa are verified in appropriate regional herbaria or at the U.S. National herbarium at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Plant Laminates

Laminated specimens of taxa collected are provided to installations as an educational tool for natural resource managers. Laminates are designed for use in the field. They are significantly more durable than standard mounted herbarium specimens. Because these specimens are covered with plastic, certain attributes may be difficult to ascertain (e.g., number of nerves on a glume, or number of stamens present), therefore supplemental descriptions are provided on the backside of the laminate. These descriptions are taken from the regional flora noted at the bottom of the label. Except for the groups Pteridophyta and Gymnospermae, the family, binomial, authority, and common names on the front label are derived from the PLANTS (Plant List of Accepted Nomenclature, Taxonomy, & Symbols, Fall 1996) database. The Pteridophytes (ferns and fern-allies) and Gymnosperms follow the nomenclature and taxonomy of Flora of North America as more volumes are released. Since local floras often designate different nomenclature than the PLANTS database, we include a synonym on the label. The remaining information on the front label is derived from data given to us by the collectors.

Specimen Mounting

An herbarium is a repository of dried and pressed plant specimens. A number of CEMML's past and present clients maintain small herbaria on-site for research and reference purposes. At least one specimen of each taxon collected from a military reservation is used as a voucher and placed in the CEMML herbarium, and additional specimens can be collected and mounted for clients as needed. Some clients choose to collect specimens themselves and send them to CEMML for mounting. These serve as a permanent record of all specimens collected. Specimens are mounted on 11.5 x 16.5 inch, acid-free 100% rag herbarium paper, and housed alphabetically by family, genus, and species, in sealed herbarium cabinets. Voucher specimens are used for research and to resolve any future identification and verification questions.

Mitigation Studies

Managing landscapes and ecosystems to achieve biodiversity and training objectives often requires mitigation and recovery steps. A variety of factors can threaten native plant populations, including invasive introduced taxa, grazing by feral animals, high-frequency or high-intensity fires set off by exploding ordinance, or excessive soil compaction or soil disturbance caused by overuse by tracked vehicles. The CEMML Floristics Laboratory has done a number of mitigation studies to assess the threats to native plant communities and threatened and endangered plants. Because of these studies, a significant portion of DoD lands previously kept off-limits to training activities are now available for training, while achieving biodiversity goals on those lands.

Database Consulting

We have developed an extensive, thorough, in-house protocol that intricately links our plant collections with a relational database of over 47,000 collections from more than 50 installations worldwide. We manage the database primarily with Centura SQLBase™, Microsoft Access™, and Microsoft Visual Basic™. Reports, labels, and queries are produced with a variety of software packages, including Corel Wordperfect™, Microsoft Access™, and Centura Quest™. We offer a variety of consulting services related to maintaining biological collections, including:

• Relational Database Design and Development
• Report design
• Data Entry Services
• Database Management 

[Top]