There is an old story about a Rangeland Management Specialist who spent 19 years focused on learning the flora of the local area. That vegetation specialist, like many of you, was relied upon and recognized for your plant identification skills. Then you are tasked to do a vegetation monitoring project 3 States away and in a totally different biome. What can you do to reduce the number of unknown plant foliar cover hits in the resulting vegetation database and still maintain your status as plant expert? The first thing to realize is that local experts should be saved for last resorts. And remember that they tire easily so keep the number you finally present to them to less than 15. Old plant reference books have some of the best morphological characteristics and site habitat descriptions even though the plant scientific names have changed. Herbariums will cost you money. Plant lists for possible matches can get expansive and time consuming to manage. Photos, plant presses, and other time saving skills are discussed. The main point is �don�t make it up!� An unknown plant is bad but you should strive to be honest.
Oral presentation and poster titles, abstracts, and authors from the Society for Range Management (SRM) Annual Meetings and Tradeshows, from 2013 forward.