Monitoring of Eastern Prairie White-Fringed Orchid ('Platanthera leucophaea'(Nuttall) Lindley) in Ohio, 1995

摘要

Eastern prairie white-fringed orchid (Platanthera leucophaea (Nuttall) Lindley)is a federally threatened species known from 55 populations in seven states, primarily Wisconsin, Illinois, and Michigan (Bowles 1993). Although this may seem like an adequate number of populations within a reasonable range of the Midwest, the majority of these populations are small, unprotected, and erratic in their persistence. At present, only 4 legally protected populations in the U.S. are considered to have viability (Bowles 1993). Platanthera leucophaea was formerly widespread in prairies and wetlands east of the Mississippi River. Its historic range included 13 states from the Iowa to Maine in the U.S. as well as southern Ontario. In the U.S., Platanthera leucophaea has declined more than 70% from original county records (Bowles 1993) due to habitat destruction from agriculture, wetland drainage, and natural succession. This drastic decline led the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list Platanthera leucophaea as a federally threatened species in 1989.