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New York Native Aquatic Plants

5K views 6 replies 5 participants last post by  theatermusic87 
#1 ·
#2 ·
I had no idea Myrio Heterophyllum is native to the North America, and even some parts of New England! I have some coming in the mail next week. What a thrill!

Interesting to note that while Myrio H can be found in New York as well as many other parts of the US, it is invasive in New Hampshire and Maine. We must always be careful about preventing our tanks from contaminating natural ecosystems, even if we think we have an all-native setup! What's native to one lake might be virulently invasive to another lake, even in the same state!
 
#5 · (Edited)
What a great thread idea!

My favorite resources for identifying the ranges of native species for both land- and water- plants are these:

The Biota of North America: North American Plant Atlas
2014 BONAP North American Plant Atlas

And if you live in the NYC Area:
The New York Metropolitan Plant Atlas
http://nymf.bbg.org/contents.asp

I use them by looking up the genus of a species I'm wondering about, and looking through the species list until I see the one I want. NAPA lists, county-by-county what species is native (light green), adventive/noxious (blue/purple), and rare or endangered (yellow/orange). If it's native to a state, the rest of the state will be dark green, if it's invasive, the state will be dark blue.

For the NYMPA, it's the same thing but even more specific than the county-level (ie, for Ludwigia palustris, it is native to Brooklyn is only located in Mill Basin and Prospect Park, and the map reflects this). Green squares are sightings from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's 1999 survey, yellow are historical sightings. You have to read the label to learn if a plant is native, there's no color code for that. Please don't use this info to collect or release plants: in most waterways, it is illegal, and there are many species that are endangered here due to habitat loss as massive degradation and some areas have species that are endangered everywhere (not too many coastal plains still exist anymore).
 
#7 ·
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