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U.S. National Parks

Project Managers: Jim Bennett
The U.S. National Park project contains over 29,000 records of documented occurrences of lichens in units of the U. S. National Park System. The records were obtained from the scientific literature, National Park Service reports, and the University of Minnesota Herbarium. Unpublished herbarium records from other herbaria are not included because they cannot be cited. Over 511 references reporting almost 2,550 lichen species from 151 park units are included. Only parks with reported lichens are included in the database. We have been unable to locate lichen references for other parks in the National Park system. Visit NPLichen: A Database of Lichens in the U.S. National Parks for more information on the project. All lichen names were standardized to Version 13 (2008) of Esslinger's Checklist of North American Lichens.

This database was developed jointly by James P. Bennett, U. S. Geological Survey and University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI and Clifford M. Wetmore, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN. Funding for this database was provided by the U. S. Geological Survey, Madison, WI and the Great Lakes Network Office, National Park Service, Ashland, WI.

    Research Checklists

    Research checklists are pre-compiled by floristic scientists. This is a very controlled method of building a species list, which allows for specific specimens to be linked to the checklist to serve as vouchers. Vouchers are proof that the species actually occurs in the given area. If there is any doubt, one can inspect these specimens for verification or make annotations to the identification when necessary.