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Noble Assists With Plant ID

published: March 20th 2009
source: Noble Foundation

The plants that surround us are often overlooked in the day-to-day routines of many. In fact, most people have no idea of the types of plants that exist in the field. For the casual observer, identification of plants is probably not all that important. But for the landowner trying to produce products from the land, manage wildlife habitat or for those providing assistance to these landowners, knowledge and identification of plants is extremely important.

Plant identification is essential for "reading" the landscape and better understanding plant community response to management practices. Therefore, plant identification is key to understanding how your management practices are influencing wildlife habitat management or grazing management. Plant identification is also essential for determining the presence or absence of nutritionally important plants for wildlife or livestock. Additionally, the presence or absence of certain plants will give you a good idea of management practices needed to promote or demote these plants within the landscape in order to better meet the needs of wildlife or livestock.

The Noble Foundation has developed several tools to make plant identification easier. One of these tools is the Plant Image Gallery. The Plant Image Gallery is being updated with a newly implemented search engine. The search engine is the first of its kind, is easy to use and greatly enhances the search and identification of the grasses, trees, shrubs and vines contained on the site. The search engine allows you to input known characteristics about a plant and helps narrow the choices for identification. This identification tool is still a work-in-progress, but should be complete by the end of 2009.

There are more than 500 species of grasses in Oklahoma and Texas. An aid to identify 116 of these grasses is the Grasses of Southern Oklahoma and North Texas: A Pictorial Guide, a fairly comprehensive reference book for the diverse grass flora of the southern Oklahoma and northern Texas regions. Full-color photographs of grasses are organized alphabetically by tribe, genus, species and common name in the 120-page book.