Rare Plants of West Point, NY

Plant rarities at West Point. A 200 year overview including details from intensive surveys in 2011.

David's presentation will focus on the rare plants of the West Point Military Academy (WP). It will include an overview from the past 200 years of rare plant explorations at WP including intensive surveys that David conducted in 2011, which added some new species to the WP flora. West Point in the Hudson Highlands of Orange and Putnam Counties, New York, encompasses approximately 6400 hectares of land, much of which is undeveloped and is surrounded by additional large tracts of undeveloped parkland. The area encompasses a large diversity of habitats including inter-tidal marshes along the Hudson River, open rocky grasslands and woodlands, forested hillsides, numerous natural and artificial lakes, peatlands, swamps, and vernal pools. This relatively pristine and diverse site, which is close to the NYC metropolitan area, is home, at least historically, to 51 rare plant taxa.