North America

Over a century ago, the Botanical Garden’s founding director Nathaniel Lord Britton established as a Garden priority the discovery and documentation of North America’s own plants and fungi. The Garden has never veered from that mission. Today the North America Program integrates and builds on a century of knowledge about the ecosystems, habitats, and species in our backyard. The United States alone hosts about 22,000 species, including many that are essential for a healthy environment, or are economically important.

NYBG’s North America Projects:

American Crossroads: Digitizing the Vascular Flora of the South-Central United States
Biodiversity Gradients in Obligate Symbiotic Organisms: A Case Study in Lichens in a Global Diversity Hotspot (NSF Dimensions)
Collaborative Research: Plants, Herbivores, and Parasitoids: A Model System for the Study of Tri-Trophic Associations
Conservation Assessment of Intertidal Vascular Plants of the Hudson River Estuary
Cultural Competency Training Program for Health Care Providers
Documenting the Occurrence through Space and Time of Aquatic Non-indigenous Fish, Mollusks, Algae, and Plants Threatening North America’s Great Lakes
EvoNet: A Phylogenomic and Systems Biology Approach to Identify Genes Underlying Plant Survival in Marginal, Low-Nitrogen Soils
Flora of Central Park
Improving Health Care for Underserved Immigrant Caribbean and Latino Communities in New York City
Incised Fumewort in Westchester County: Early Detection and Rapid Response
Lichen Biodiversity of the Mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain
Lichen Conservation Biology
The Macroalgal Herbarium Consortium: Accessing 150 Years of Specimen Data to Understand Changes in the Marine/Aquatic Environment
The Macrofungi Collection Consortium: Unlocking a Biodiversity Resource for Understanding Biotic Interactions, Nutrient Cycling and Human Affairs
The Mid-Atlantic Megalopolis: Achieving a greater scientific understanding of our urban world
Natural History Collections: Developing Ericaceae Research Resources through Collections Enhancement and Data Integration
The New Manual of Vascular Plants Project by NYBG
New York City Ecoflora
North American Lichens and Bryophytes: Sensitive Indicators of Environmental Quality and Change
Partnership to the Existing New England Vascular Plant Network for Collections at the New York Botanical Garden
Strategy for Conserving Ash Trees in the Northeast: Collection, Analysis, and Outreach
Starry Stonewort: Assessing the Threat of an Invasive Freshwater Macroalga in the Northeast
Systematics and Biogeography of the Woodland Sedges Carex section Laxiflorae (Cyperaceae)
Using Herbarium Data To Document Plant Niches In The High Peaks And High Plains Of The Southern Rockies – Past, Present, And Future
Westchester Wilderness Walk, Zofnass Family Preserve