RESOURCES

Plant Nativity

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Flora of the Southeastern United States. Weakley, A.S. and the Southeastern Flora Team. 2023. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Herbarium, NC Botanical Garden, University of NC at Chapel Hill. Use this to determine if a plant is native or invasive, which is especially useful if you are shopping for garden plants. Versions include the Search webpage for a simple species lookup. The different colors in a state indicate ecoregion. A square on the map indicates a species is native in that state and ecoregion. A triangle means exotic and spreading in the wild. A diamond indicates the nativity is uncertain. Also, a filled-in symbol means the species is common, a dot inside means uncommon, and an empty symbol means rare.

FloraQuest: Northern Tier (Mobile App) This is the companion app to Flora of the Southeastern United States. 

Digital Atlas of the Maryland Flora. (Mobile Friendly) Maryland Plant Atlas Work Group. 2021. This is an excellent, up-to-date, scientific database, but you need exact spelling. If no nativity indicator appears after “Synonyms”, the species is native where indicated on the map. If “Non-native” appears, it is not native and is spreading in the wild. If “Nativity uncertain” appears, the scientific evidence is unclear. If “Non-native invasive” appears, the species is invasive; however, not all invasives are noted as invasive. The Maryland Biodiversity Project uses the same list of plant species as this source.

Maryland Biodiversity Project. This is a citizen science project “started in June 2012 by Bill Hubick and Jim Brighton.” You might find this website easier to use than the Digital Atlas of the Maryland Flora. Both websites contain the same plant species and nativity indicators, which appear after the species name. This website includes thousands of plant species with multiple photos. 

Digital Atlas of the Virginia Flora. (Mobile-Friendly) Virginia Botanical Associates. 2015. Blacksburg, VA. This is an excellent, up-to-date, scientific database, but you need exact spelling. In the counties on the map, red dots indicate the species is native. Blue dots mean introduced (i.e., non-native), spreading in the wild, and possibly invasive. Gray dots mean nativity is uncertain or not specified (i.e., nativity unknown). Focus on the dots nearest the MD and VA border.

The Biota of North America Program (BONAP). Kartesz, J.T. 2014. Chapel Hill, N.C. This resource has maps of species distribution by county, but accuracy is limited by basing distribution on verified sightings. Although invasiveness is not noted, any non-native species spreading in the wild might be invasive.

• Light blue or royal blue indicates the species is non-native and reported in the wild. 

• Only light green (not rare) or yellow (rare) indicates native and present in the wild.

• Teal indicates the species is adventive in that location (i.e., non-native in a location, but native elsewhere in the U.S. and present/escaped into the wild in that location). 

• Pink indicates the species “whether native or foreign“ is considered noxious per legislation. 

• Kelly green indicates that the plant species is native somewhere in North America, but not necessarily native in the state. 

BONAP’s Taxonomic Data Center (TDC). TDC is especially useful because nativity can vary based on subspecies or variety, and this webpage reports data down to that level; however, TDC can only be used on computer or tablet. 
BONAP’s North American Plant Atlas (NAPA), (US County-Level Species Maps: List by Genus). NAPA does not distinguish among subspecies or varieties. (Mobile-Friendly)

Mid-Atlantic Invaders Tool (MAIT). Fulton, J.P., C.T. Bargeron and J.M. Swearingen. 2021. This website is a comprehensive compilation of excellent sources from MD and other Mid-Atlantic Jurisdictions including DE, PA, NJ, VA, WV, and DC. It includes many photos. 

The Maryland Invasive Species Council (MISC). Invasive Species of Concern in Maryland. This website includes non-regulatory lists of species invasive in Maryland. By design, just an important subset of the invasives are included. MISC’s terrestrial and aquatic plant species total about 300 versus the more than 600 listed by MAIT. 

The Flora of Delaware Online Database. McAvoy, W.A. 2023. Delaware Division of Fish & Wildlife, Species Conservation & Research Program, Smyrna, Delaware. This is an excellent database, but not as useful as some other resources because Maryland has more plant diversity than the small area covered by Delaware, which is mostly in the Coastal Plain and has only a small strip within the Piedmont. “Invasive” or “Invasive Watchlist” is noted.