From Plant Press Vol. 17 no. 2, April 2014.
Kamal M. Ibrahim and Paul M. Peterson have recently authored “Grasses of Washington, D.C.” (Smithsonian Contributions to Botany 99: 1-128. 2014). This new publication was written for anyone who has an interest in learning the names of local grasses, and includes a vegetative key, glossary of terms, descriptions, and illustrations for the identification of 182 native and naturalized grasses that are known to occur in the District of Columbia.
The grass family includes more than 12,000 species worldwide and is a ubiquitous feature of many ecosystems. The most accurate way to identify grasses is to use floral characteristics; however, it is often necessary to identify grasses without mature plants or only portions of those plants without complete spikelets. Under such conditions conventional botanical manuals offer little assistance. Moreover, identification using floral characteristics requires special training in grass taxonomy that is not available to most agronomists, technical field staff, and interested amateurs.
Floras offer a snapshot of the current knowledge about plants from a particular region. The last major work for grasses for the Washington area was completed by Albert Spear Hitchcock and Paul C. Standley in the Flora of the District of Columbia and Vicinity (Contributions from the United States National Herbarium 21: 1-329 & 42 plates.1919). Recently, the topic of plant conservation has gained acceptance by the public to preserve biodiversity since a ‘morphological form’ or species has an intrinsic value based on ethical, moral, ecological, and economic grounds. Ultimately, the preservation of a suitable habitat is paramount to preserving a species. Most of the grasses in this new flora occur in and among the least disturbed habitats left in DC, primarily along the Potomac and Anacostia drainages and their tributaries. The easy to use keys coupled with illustrations of all the grasses allows an uncomplicated way for amateurs and trained biologists alike to perform a basic science inventory.
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