Biodiversity Task Force Focus-on-Habitat Series:
Growing Habitat with Native Plants

by Pam Owen

Want wildlife on your property? The first step is providing food and shelter, and native plants are key to both.

	Marion Lobstein

On Saturday, February 24, 2007, the Biodiversity Task Force continued its focus on habitat issues with a presentation by Marion Blois Lobstein of the Flora of Virginia Project. Lobstein, an Associate Professor of Biology at Northern Virginia Community College, Adjunct Professor at Blandy Experimental Farm, and Fellow of the Virginia Academy of Science, explained the critical role native plants play in wildlife conservation.

Lobstein also talked about the Flora of Virginia Project’s mission to catalog all of Virginia's plants. As its website (www.dcr.virginia.gov/dnh/vaflora.htm) explains, the Project was initiated to prepare and publish a comprehensive manual of Virginia's 3,700+ native and naturalized plants—"from oaks to cattails, ferns to pines, kudzu to coneflowers."

Ultimately, the Project is designed to produce a book with an accompanying website, serving the urgent needs of scientists, students, and citizens interested in plants and their habitats in Virginia. Access to this "provides a deeper understanding of Virginia's plants and ecosystems and increases our ability and desire to conserve the Commonwealth's plants and environments they inhabit." While some other states, including West Virginia, have already done such comprehensive cataloging, this is the first time such a project has been undertaken in Virginia's modern history.