Plant mapping - another 2 cents worth

Randy Lamb (Rlamb@hypertech.yk.ca)
Wed, 6 Mar 1996 23:20:26 -0800

I just can't resist throwing my 2 cents into the latest fracas.

I see the practical use of such distribution maps for CP. At work I have a
couple of good vascular plant texts* for Yukon and Alaska that show the
RANGE of everything on vague shaded distribution maps that show rivers but
no roads. These maps also include herbarium collection sites marked by
circles that must cover at least 500 sq. km.. You would have a very
difficult time locating plants with those types of information.

(*For some reason, we also have a vascular plant distribution book for
Norway in our very small library. I'll get the title if anyone is interested.)

However... listing sites to 100 square kilometre polygons is a little
toooooo close for comfort. Given a ten by ten kilometre area I could
probably find the Cp sites plants fairly easy with a good topo map, or
aerial photograph, and some practical habitat intuition (years of field work
pay off).

I'll support the idea if we can make the site information a little more vague.

Randy.