Annotated Checklist of the Vascular Plants of Little Sahara State Park, Oklahoma

Abstract

This study catalogues the vascular plants of Little Sahara State Park in Woods County, Oklahoma. A total of 181 species in 55 families is listed. Abun- dance, ecological distribution, and flowering time for each species is noted. Two families, Asteraceae and Poaceae, contain more than one-third of all species present. Floristically, Little Sahara is much more similar to the dune areas to the southwest than those to the northwest even though it is geographically closer to the northwest dune areas. In northwestern Oklahoma there are deposits of windblown sand on the north side of the major rivers. For the most part, this sand is stabilized into thickly vegetated sandhills or sand dunes, but there are areas where the sand is largely without vegetation and forms active dune complexes. Little is known about either the species composition or the community structure of the vege- tation of these sand dunes, and so, in 1976, a study was begun on the species present at Little Sahara State Park. This study is part of a larger project on the vegetation and vegetation-environment relationships on sand dunes in Woods Co., Oklahoma. There have been no comprehensive studies made of these dunes and even the basic information about species occurrences and distributions is lacking. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to describe the plant species present on the sand dunes in Woods Co. and to provide a brief description of the habitat and growth form of each species. In addition the flora of these sand dunes is compared with the floras of four other sand dune areas. STUDY AREA. Little Sahara State Park is located in Woods Co., approximately 4.8 km (3 miles) south of the town of Waynoka (R16W T24N; SW S23 & NW S26). The park is eminently suitable for research since its relatively small size, 146 ha (360 acres), makes comprehensive species collection possible through all of the typical environments of the sand dunes. These dunes appear to be representative of the dunes throughout Woods Co. and northwestern Oklahoma. Typical dune en- vironments range from active, nonvegetated sand areas, through semi-stable dunes to stable vegetated dunes. There are also areas, though only forming a small pro- portion of the Park, that have unique species combinations that occur in specialized habitats, e.g., wooded dune slacks, blowouts, and even a temporary pool (Fig. 1).