Botany Program

Our botanists combine field work with data from partners to assess the conservation status of New York’s plants and determine important locations for plant biodiversity statewide.

Status of New York's Rare Plants

Our botany program publishes the Rare Plant Status Lists of vascular plants annually, which is used by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to produce the regulatory Protected Plant List for New York.

2023 Rare Plant Status Lists (PDF, 2.2 MB) 2008 Rare Moss List (PDF, 170 KB) DEC Protected Plant List

Botany Projects

Learn more about projects where the primary focus is rare plants. They include rare plant surveys on public and private land, floras, and iNaturalist surveys.

Rare Plant Projects Flora Surveys

Botany Participation in Other Projects

Our botanists also participate in program-wide projects like our state parks inventory, state forests inventory, iMapInvasives, and special projects that involve inventory with zoologists and ecologists such as our Plum Island project.

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ESF Summer Interns

Each summer we hire a student from SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) to assist us with field work and data management.

Botany Interns

Additional Botany Products

Our fieldwork and botanical expertise are used to produce products that inform the public and our partners about rare plant information and issues across New York State.

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Botanical Resources

There are many other sources of information on the flora and rare plants of New York that can be accessed with the links here.

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