The Great American IN Nature Wildflower Project (GAIN WP)

What is the Great American IN Nature Wildflower Project?

First published in 2018, the IN Nature Quick Guide to Common Native Spring Woodland Wildflowers of Indiana is an introduction to many of Indiana’s best-known woodland wildflowers. Two years later, in the spring of 2020, facing the impact of a global pandemic that is altering the daily lives of everyone, it is time to expand upon the original document.

Whereas the Quick Guide only shows images, common names, taxonomic names, and families, the goal of GAIN WP is to create comprehensive, detailed web pages from each of the represented species. Included in the GAINWP page templates are sections related to plant physiology, historical uses, lore, propagation, landscape uses, and more. Tracking the flowering dates of these plants over time will also provide insight into the impacts of weather patterns and climate change.

Plants Included in the Project

The current focus is to build educational webpages for the 53 species of wildflowers detailed within the Quick Guide. However, this list is far from complete, and we will add additional species as time and resources allow.

How does it work?

• Wildflower sightings and photographs will be primarily collected through the IN Nature Facebook group. Non-group members can share their sightings by emailing to info@indiananature.net.
• All submissions must include a photograph suitable for identification, date, and county of the observation, name of observer(s) as you wish them to appear, and optionally, a suggested species.
• All photos and information included in the submission may be included on our website. Photo credit will be included with each photograph. Submitting your sighting to the Facebook group along with the hashtag #GAINWP indicates you agree with the sharing of this information.
• Anonymous observations will be processed upon request.
• Photographs submitted for species that have yet to have webpages will be stored in the indiananature.net database until their corresponding pages are created.

Notes on Maps

Each species page contains a map of Indiana with three layers:

• GAINWP: This layer represents county data collected through the Great American Indiana Nature Wildflower Project. These sightings represent both native and naturalized populations.
• Herbarium: This layer represents a summation of herbarium records from four sources. The bibliography at the bottom of this page contains additional information and links to the sources.
• Biota of North America Project (BAMONA)
• USDA Plant Database
• vPlants Database
• Indiana Plant Atlas
• eFloras: Ths layer is based upon the historic range maps that are represented in the website efloras.org.

Acknowledgments and Contributors

The success of GAINWP is dependent upon our community involvement and participation. As such, the following individuals are recognized for their contributions to this project.

Sources Used

The following resources were used as references for multiple webpages for this project. Additional sources are cited when applicable on individual pages:

Baker RL, Carmony M. 1975. Indiana place names. Bloomington (IN): Indiana University Press

Bubel N. 1988. The new seed starters handbook. Emmaus (PA): Rodale Press

Britton N, Brown A. 1913. An illustrated flora of the northern United States, Canada and the British possessions from Newfoundland to the parallel of the southern boundary of Virginia and from the Atlantic Ocean westward to the 102d meridian. 2nd ed. New York (NY): C. Scribner’s Sons.

Coffey T. 1993. The history and folklore of North American wildflowers. New York (NY): Houghton Mifflin Company.

Deam C. 1940. The flora of Indiana. Indianapolis (IN): Indiana Division of Conservation, Department of Forestry.

Dolan RW, Moore ME. 2020. Indiana Plant Atlas. Indianapolis (IN): Butler University Friesner Herbarium. [accessed 2020 Apr 4]. http://www.indiana.plantatlas.usf.edu

eFloras. 2008. Flora of North America. St. Louis (MO): Missouri Botanical Garden & Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Herbaria. [accessed 22 February 2008]. http://www.efloras.org

Fassett N, Thomson O. 1978. Spring flora of Wisconsin. Madison (WI): University of Wisconsin Press.

Gleason H. 1963. The new Britton and Brown illustrated flora of the northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. New York (NY): Hafner Publishing Company.

Harstad H. 1999. Go native! Bloomington (IN): Indiana University Press.

Hilty J. 2020. Illinois Wildflowers. Illinoiswildflowers.info. [accessed 2020 Apr 2]. https://www.illinoiswildflowers.info

Kartesz, JT. 2014 and continuously updated. North American Plant Atlas. Chapel Hill (NC): The Biota of North America Program (BONAP); [accessed 2019 Apr 2]. http://www.bonap.org/napa.html

McPherson A. 1993. Indian names in Indiana. Monticello (IN): The Blasted Works.

McPherson A, McPherson S. 1977. Wild food plants of Indiana & adjacent states. Bloomington (IN): AuthorHouse.

Homoya M. 2012. Wildflowers and ferns of Indiana forests: a field guide. Bloomington (IN): Indiana University Press.

[MNPS] Missouri Native Plant Society. 2020. Photographs and descriptions of the vascular plants of Missouri, USA [accessed 2020 Apr 15]. http://missouriplants.com

Mohlenbrock R. 1987. Wildflowers: A quick identification guide to the wildflowers of North America. New York (NY): Macmillan.

NatureServe Inc. 2020. NatureServe Explorer 2.0. [accessed 2020 Apr 14]. https://explorer.natureserve.org/

Newcomb L. 1977. Newcomb's wildflower guide. Boston (MA): Little, Brown & Company.

Peterson LE. 1977. The Peterson field guide to edible wild plants. New York (NY): Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Sanders J. 2003. The secrets of wildflowers. Guilford (CT): Lyons Press.

[SNH] School of Natural Healing. 2018. The Complete Writings of Dr. John R. Christopher. [accessed 2020 Apr 10]. https://online.snh.cc/files/2100/HTML/index.htm

USDA, NRCS. 2020. The PLANTS Database. Greensboro (NC): National Plant Data Team. [accessed 2020 Apr 4]. http://plants.usda.gov

[vPlants] The vPlants Project. 2020. vPlants: A Virtual Herbarium of the Chicago Region. [accessed 2020 Apr 4]. http://www.vplants.org

[LBJWC} Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. 2019. The Botanic Garden of Texas. [accessed 2020 Apr 10]. https://www.wildflower.org

Yatskievych K. 2001. Field guide to Indiana wildflowers. Bloomington (IN): Indiana University Press.