Book Description

Green photosynthetic plants abound in West Virginia. These green ecological producers capture sunlight energy and convert it into chemical energy in the form of sugars. A sugar maple tree, for example, produces tremendous amounts of sap, which it stores in its roots, and uses it to produce green leaves, new twigs, fresh bark and roots. Because green plants produce more food than they themselves can utilize, consumers such as aphids, cardinals, pipevine swallowtail caterpillars, white tailed deer, and rabbits may eat the plants leaves to gain energy themselves. In a complex array of food chains and food webs, plants capture sunlight energy, animals eat them, other animals eat those animals, and the web of life in the ecosystems of West Virginia is supported. Plus, rooted plants affect their environment by holding soil from the eroding effects of rainfall. They provide shelter and cover and building materials for animals. Trees hold tremendous amounts of nutrients within their trunks, branches and twigs. As a result, those soil nutrients are not lost down-stream when spring rains come to the forest. Trees provide various degrees of shade, which in turn provides a variety of micro-habitats within the forest, permitting a great variety of plant species to thrive in dry, wet, or moderately moist situations. Of course, wild plants provide wood, food, and even medicines to the knowing harvester. The plants of West Virginia, then, are critical to our own survival as well as the survival of all the ecosystems of our state. We need to conserve not only the ecological communities these plants live within, but the species of plants themselves. West Virginians can boast of a diversity of plant species. Vascular plants (usually larger plants: ferns, trees, wildflowers, vines, with sophisticated veins for transporting water, nutrients, and sugars) constitute most of the flora, but there are also numerous species of usually smaller, non-vascular plants (mosses, hornworts, liverworts, with less sophisticated means of moving materials throughout their bodies). There have been found in West Virginia to date 2474 vascular taxa, including subspecies and varieties. There are 2344 species of vascular plants recognized in our state, in 779 genera and 160 families. Table 1 highlights those families with the most number of genera or species in them. Three fourths of the vascular flora of West Virginia is native to the state, while the remainder is adventive, introduced, or exotic (Figure 2). While the non-vascular plant data is less complete than the vascular data, to date we have documented 375 species of mosses, liverworts and hornworts in our state. Natural Heritage Programs are concerned about the diversity of life on our planet, documenting it, cataloging it, organizing data about it, all to the end of helping land use managers conserve it. We are concerned about biological diversity, or biodiversity. Biodiversity has been defined in a variety of ways, but one of the simplest definitions may be the best: "The variety of life in an area, including the variety of genes, species, plant and animal communities, ecosystems, and the interactions of these elements." (USDA, Forest Service, Fisheries, Wildlife and Range, Southern Region). Another good definition is this: "At the simplest level, biodiversity is the sum total of all the plants, animals, fungi and microorganisms in the world, or in a particular area; all of their individual variation; and all of the interactions between them. It is the set of living organisms that make up the fabric of the planet Earth and allow it to function as it does, by capturing energy from the sun and using it to drive all of life's processes ... making possible the sustainability of our planet" (Peter H. Raven, Missouri Botanical Garden)