News release, effective immediately.
For media inquiries, contact Caroline Booth Lara, Communications Specialist, (580) 224-6379.
  email: cblara@noble.org

Plant Identification Site Goes Online

ARDMORE, Okla. - Ever wonder if that's poison oak or Virginia creeper growing by the fence? Or what's that weed threatening to take over your lawn? Maybe you'd like to figure out what type of beautiful tree is growing on the corner.

Plant identification for the southern Oklahoma and northern Texas region has been made a lot easier with the presence of a new plant identification gallery currently featuring about 2,400 photos of approximately 600 area trees, grasses and forbs.

The gallery was compiled by two specialists with the Noble Foundation, a nonprofit organization in Ardmore concentrating on granting and agricultural, plant biology and forage biotechnology research. Authors are Chuck Coffey, a forages specialist, and Russell Stevens, a wildlife and range specialist.

The gallery will continue to expand and there are plenty of plants left to ID - it's estimated there are almost 5,000 species of plants in Texas and 3,000 in Oklahoma.

The gallery can be accessed through the Noble Foundation's web site at www.noble.org/imagegallery.

People living in the Noble Foundation service area (a 100-mile radius around Ardmore) will be most likely to match the plants in their area with those in the plant ID gallery, Stevens and Coffey said. However, some plants listed are common as far south as the Texas Gulf Coast and as far north as the Great Plains of Kansas and Nebraska.

The two co-authors of the project said the plant gallery offers advantages not found with other ID sources: 1) each plant is represented with several photos featuring close-ups of bark, leaves, fruit, stem, flowers, etc.; 2) the photos are in color for easier identification; 3) a variety of plant types are covered; 4) plants are identified by both common and scientific names; 5) identification is easier without having to go to an herbarium for plant classification; and 6) the gallery is user-friendly for both the novice and professional.

Work officially began on the ID project in 1994. Since then, Coffey and Stevens estimate about 24,000 photos of plants have been taken.

Mike Haddock, agriculture librarian at Kansas State University, readied the information for Web distribution. He began work on the project at the Foundation while on sabbatical there last summer.

Coffey and Stevens said a main reason for creating the directory was to enable NF cooperators (farmers and ranchers receiving information through the Foundation's free consultation service) to become familiar with plants on their properties, and thus make better management decisions.

"A predominance of a certain plant in a location will indicate different things" that may need to be addressed to gain the full economic benefit from the ranching or farming operation, Stevens said.

Plans also are in the works with University of Oklahoma Press (Norman) for a book-form version of the information.

Meanwhile, both authors said the image gallery will continue to grow, both with additional plants and new information on plants already included.

"As long as Russell and I are here, we will be continuing to add to it," Coffey said.

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Photo Available: jpeg | tif
Cutline: Russell Stevens, wildlife and range specialist (left), and Chuck Coffey, forage specialist, both with the Noble Foundation in Ardmore, look through some of the several books of photographs taken of area plants for their new plant ID Web site. Photo/Courtesy the Noble Foundation