Vascular Flora

Photo: Sean Sweeney

Beginning in 2018, Dr. Richard Stalter from St. John’s University has been sampling the vascular flora of Freshkills Park. The object of the study is to document the flora at Freshkills Park, with additional attention paid to documenting invasive species as well as rare or threatened species. The data will be used to inform park planners of regions to preserve as well as regions to focus invasive removal efforts.

In the first season (2018-2019), 299 vascular plant species were collected from 208 genera in 75 families. Families with the great number of species are the Asteraceae (44) Poaceae (35) and Fabaceae (21). Altogether, taxa in these families compose 33% of the flora. The genus with the largest number of species was Juncus with 7. One. hundred seven non-native taxa compose 36% of the flora.