Rare Plant Information

New! Environmental Resource Mapper - This interactive mapping application can show you the general areas where rare animals, rare plants, and rare and significant natural communities (such as forests, wetlands, and other habitat types) have been documented by the NY Natural Heritage Program. The Environmental Resource Mapper also displays locations of New York regulated freshwater wetlands and of protected streams, rivers, and lakes. These maps are intended as one source of information for landowners, land managers, citizens, local officials, and project sponsors engaged in land use decision making, conservation, or environmental assessment.

2007 New York Rare Plant Status Lists (pdf - 1.1Mb, 128 pages) June 2007 lists of rare plants of New York State with their rarity status and counties of occurrence. This document also contains rare plant phenology lists.

2006 New York Rare Plant Status Lists (pdf - 1.1Mb, 81 pages) May 2006 lists of rare plants of New York State with their rarity status and counties of occurrence.

Identification and natural history resources (pdf - 240Kb, 13 pages) Annotated bibliography of guides and manuals for New York native plant identification and natural history information.

Conservation Guides - These comprehensive factsheets about individual rare species and natural community types are designed to help land managers, decision-makers, planners, scientists, consultants, students, and the interested public better understand the biodiversity that characterizes New York. Conservation Guides include information on biology, identification, habitat, distribution, conservation, and management. Guides for many of New York's rare species and natural community types have been completed and are updated periodically, and more are continually being added to the Guides website.

Botany Program:

The New York Natural Heritage Program keeps track of the status of the state's rare flowering plants, conifers, ferns and fern allies, and mosses. The Heritage botany staff currently includes Steve Young (Chief Botanist), Richard Ring (Botanist), and Nancy Davis-Ricci (Assistant Biologist). See the staff list for contact information.

This map shows the currently known distribution of rare plant populations in New York. As no comprehensive surveys of the state have been conducted, there are surely many more populations than are shown. If you know of a rare plant population that you think may be missing, please use the Natural Heritage Reporting Form (two-page MS Word document) and submit your findings to the NY Natural Heritage Program.

The links at the top of the page display lists that include the rarity and protection status of New York's rare plants. There is also information on how to identify and report rare plant sightings. Links to other botanical websites are provided in the box at the right of this page. We are now in the process of organizing natural history and identification information about our rare plants to include as conservation guides. You will be able to sort the information by a number of different fields to produce lists tailored to your needs. We hope you find our information useful and we would appreciate any comments you have to improve the content of our site.

Thank you for visiting the New York Natural Heritage Program botany web page.

More about Rare Plant Information:

Plant Rarity and The Law - Various government laws, regulations, and policies protect rare plants.
Rare Plant Field Techniques and Specimen Preparation - Recommendations for conducting a rare plant search and guidance on how to legally collect and carefully preserve and submit a specimen.
Large Herbaria in New York State - A list of addresses for large herbaria in New York State.