Montgomery County Rare Plants

Montgomery County has the shortest list of rare plants of all counties in the state, according to the New York Natural Heritage Program, which keeps track of rare plant and animal populations. SUNY-Oneonta professor Donna Volger is not convinced that some area counties _ specifically Montgomery, Fulton and Otsego _ are less biologically diverse than their neighbors. At 410 square miles, nearly twice Schenectady County's area, Montgomery County has only 269 different species, according to the State Library's list.

"You really can't account for the difference in diversity on size alone. What's really happening is there's probably more botanists that have looked at Schenectady County than have looked at Montgomery County," Volger said.

According to Steve Young, program botanist for the New York Natural Heritage Program, there is a good chance more species exist in Montgomery County than are currently documented. "With more survey work, we still think there is a possibility of finding some of the rare plants such as troublesome sedge, fairy wand, and ram's head ladyslipper orchid," Young said. "Some of the historical records are not very specific, so we have not spent a lot of time in the county doing surveys, and there are not a lot of large natural areas that might yield rare plants," Young said. Young said some places, including the limestone areas along the Thruway, are worthy of more study because they might hold some interesting species.

Years ago, Montgomery County was one of the few places in the world where one could find Jacob's Ladder, listed as an endangered plant in New York state. Jacob's Ladder is one of hundreds of plants listed in the New York Natural Heritage Program's updated "Rare Plants Status List," which came out in May. Botanists believe all but the Tall Thistle may still exist in Montgomery County. But most of these plants haven't been documented for 20 years or more. Jacob's ladder was spotted two years ago in Minden, but could not be found last year.

This list identifies the size in square miles of Capital Region counties, alongside the number of plant species identified as existing in the counties by the NY Flora Association. These numbers are not numbers of rare plants.