Please improve your database by sharing information about where plants grow in the U.S.!

The overall goal of the Distribution Update module is to improve the plant species distribution information in the PLANTS database. A particular goal is to speed input and subsequent dissemination of distributional information about weeds, especially those that are either spreading rapidly and/or are poorly known. Because timely information is important as we battle exotic plant infestations, we have also devised a notification process to let you know of new distributional records that are being input into PLANTS. You can receive this information by subscribing to the Distribution Email List Server. We hope this feature will be especially useful for state noxious weed coordinators and other exotic plant professionals.

The Distribution Update module allows you, our users, to become direct participants in the PLANTS database. Each data submission will require some documentation in order to maintain the high quality of distribution data now in PLANTS, but we have tried to minimize what is required. Your information will be evaluated by floristic botanists to assure its reliability, and during this validation we may contact you for more information. A submission based upon a voucher collection deposited at a recognized herbarium or published literature will be the easiest for us to validate. If we decide that a report is unverifiable, it cannot be included in the PLANTS database at this time, though it may be used to obtain more information or collect a voucher specimen to support validation. Please include as much information as possible to minimize this possibility and to streamline our validation process. Information about collecting voucher specimens can be found through the PLANTS Home Page by clicking on "Links" – "Educational" – "Plant Collecting & Herbaria."

If you have suggestions about how to improve this process, or if you have large volumes of distributional data that are more easily handled in bulk, please email PLANTS.