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Red Butte Canyon Insect FaunaPlants Introduced to Utah. In Red Butte Canyon, plants introduced to Utah, either from other portions of the United States or from another country, are largely restricted to roadside and trailside sites and to open grassy or rocky slopes below 1829 m (6000 ft). Some of the more commonly occurring plants in this category are:
The incidence of Isatis tinctoria and Linaria dalmatica increased greatly between 1970 and 1990. Floristic Diversity. The following species were reported from Red Butte Canyon by Cottam and Evans (1945) and by Bates (1963). Not only is the presence of these plants unverified by herbarium specimens (see Albee et al.1988, which is based on specimens in the herbaria of Brigham Young University, Utah State University, and the University of Utah), but at least six of them would not ordinarily occur within the elevational limits of the canyon:
Note: With the assistance of Kay Thorne and Leila Shultz, curators of the herbaria at Brigham Young and Utah State Universities, a herbarium check was made to be certain that no Red Butte Canyon specimens exist for those species (with asterisk) that, according to Albee et al. (1988), are not in Red Butte Canyon or its vicinity. The following species were reported by Arnow (1971), but, for the reasons stated below, can no longer be considered part of the flora of the canyon: Arabis puberula Nutt. (puberulent rockcress) collection identified by R. C. Rollins as an anomalous A. lemmonii Wats., the correction too late for the 1971 publication. Calypso bulbosa (L.) Oakes (fairy slipper orchid) 1971 report based on a basal leaf, no subsequent evidence of its presence available. Carex muricata L. (as C. angustior Mack) a misidentification. Species names now submerged with those of other species present in the canyon (also included in section on nomenclatural changes): Arabis divaricarpa A. Nels. = A. holboellii Hornem. Holboell rockcress Bromus commutatus Schrad. = B. japonicus Thunb. Japanese or meadow chess Glyceria elata (Nash) M. E. Jones = G. striata (Lam.) Hitchc. fowl mannagrass Juncus tracyi Rydb. = J. ensifolius Wikst. swordleaf rush Taraxacum laevigatum (Willd.) DC. = T. officinale Wiggers common dandelion Thus, the 511 species representing 73 families reported from Red Butte Canyon by Arnow (1971) can now be placed at 484 species (390 indigenous and 94 introduced) known to have been present in the canyon at one time or another. Only two populations present in 1971 are definitely known to have been eliminated: Lactuca biennis (biennial wild lettuce), which was introduced into Utah from the north about 1967 but did not survive; and Solidago occidentalis (western goldenrod), a single streamside population at the mouth of the canyon taken out by the 1983-1984 flooding. According to Albee et al. (1988), the 390 indigenous species reported from Red Butte Canyon (Arnow, 1971) also occur in at least one other canyon to the south. Based on Arnow et al. (1980) and Albee et al. (1988), roughly 130 native plants not found in Red Butte Canyon have been collected between an elevation of 1828 and 2438 m (6000-8000 ft) in canyons having a greater altitudinal range in southern Salt Lake County. This figure indicates that the floristic diversity in Red Butte Canyon, while greater than that in heavily disturbed Emigration Canyon (Cottam and Evans, 1945), is less than that in canyons farther south. Nomenlatural changes since Arnow (1971) are listed in the appendix. |
| Red Butte Canyon Research Natural Area (2008) |