This is a database of many of the plants that grow in New York State — according to Chuck. Chuck (me) is a plant hobbyist, not a formally trained botanist, horticulturist, or taxonomist. The database is not comprehensive, nor is it authoritative. For a comprehensive and authoritative NYS checklist, see NY Flora Atlas.

The purpose of the database is not simply to list all the plants that grow in NYS. The idea is to list many native and naturalized plants that are familiar to us in NYS, and also many of the plants familiar to us that do not grow in NYS, such as ornamental and culinary plants, purposefully to show their taxonomic relatedness to NYS native and naturalized plants.

As the database attempts to show the taxonomic relationships of plants, it is in its current form, lacking. The Cronquist classification scheme for flowering plants used in this database, and currently used in most botany manuals, flora, and checklists (mostly for convenience), is dated. As are the non-flowering plant classification schemes.  So I am now in the process of reclassifying all of the taxa using the APG scheme to better reflect the taxonomic relationships of common NYS plants and their familiar non-native relatives.  After all, that's the whole purpose of the database.