Historical Common Names of Great Plains Plants

Sources

Sources for these common names included journals, first person accounts of explorations in the Great Plains, ethnobotanical literature, medical botany texts, cooperative extension publications, floras, popular wildflower guides, personal notes of researchers, and other dictionaries. The works which were included also identified species by scientific name either in the original or in footnotes by later editors. Most sources of common names consulted were published before 1940. It is hoped that more current sources will be added in the future. Bioregions unlike geopolitical entities usually don't have well-defined boundaries. For the purposes of this web site, lists of species from "Flora of the Great Plains" and the "Atlas of the Flora of the Great Plains" were used.

Great Plains Flora Association. 1986. Flora of the Great Plains. Lawrence : University Press of Kansas

Great Plains Flora Association. 1977. Atlas of the Flora of the Great Plains. Ames : Iowa State University Press

Dates

Dates indicate that a name was used in a published source at that time. They should be interpreted to mean that a name was in use by the earlier listed dates and still in use by the later date and are only approximate for actual usage of any name. Dates with question marks indicate that the name was listed in a dictionary published at that date but may have no longer been in common usage by that time.

Spelling

English common name spellings followed the rules of Kartesz and Thieret (1991). Alternate spellings are shown in brackets. Non-English common names are spelled as in the original work.

Kartesz, John T. and John W. Thieret. 1991. Common names for vascular plants: guidelines for use and application. Sida 14(3):421-434.

Taxonomy

The primary sources for scientific synonyms are listed below.

PLANTS Database

W3Tropicos

International Plant Names Index

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Judellen Thornton-Jaringe for assistance with the web site design.