Southern Ontario Vascular Plant Species List - Conservation Ontario

Introduction
Previous versions of this publication were based on the Ontario Plant List (OPL),
published by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, 1998. There have been some
notable changes in plant systematics and nomenclature over the past 15 years
necessitating the need to update this species list. As a result of research associated with
the publication of the Flora of North America (26 volumes in total) many taxonomic and
nomenclatural updates have appeared in the literature.
Concurrently, additional alien and native species have been observed and are now
recorded as part of the flora of Ontario. With the release of this 3 rd edition of the Southern
Ontario Vascular Plant List there is a more harmonious linkage with the plant names
listed in web based databases such as NatureServe, PLANTS, VASCAN, FOIBIS and
ITIS.
The main function of this document is to provide a list of standardized species codes
which can be used to quickly record plant species. Although this list has been compiled
for use with the provincial Vegetation Sampling Protocol (VSP) and Ecological Land
Classification (ELC) programs, it can also be used by other researchers who are
collecting field data in southern Ontario. These seven digit species codes are used by
ecologists and biologists to speed up the time required to document plant species
observed in the field.
With over 3,400 plant species [including subspecies, varieties and hybrid forms] to
choose from (Natural Heritage Information Centre web site, 2011) it can sometimes be a
bit problematic when identifying plants in the field. In an effort to simplify this process,
plant species normally not observed in southern Ontario have been removed. Excluded
species are those found in northern Ontario (Boreal Forest Region, north to Hudson Bay)
and western species which are normally restricted to the Kenora, Rainy River and
Thunder Bay districts. This brings the number of species down to roughly 2,900 species.
This is still a sizable number of species to work with, but it does reduce the number of
species to below 3,000. As a consequence of using this list, the accuracy of our field data
has improved, eliminating records for more northern species which are not normally
found in southern Ontario.
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