Vascular Plants of the Reed College Campus
author: Una V. Davies
advisor: H.W. Rickett
year: 1938
EXCERPT: The purpose of this paper is to list as far as possible all the flowering plants and ferns both native and cultivated on the Reed Campus. A brief explanation of the procedure and problems will give a better understanding of the lists that follow.
Representatives of each species, native and cultivated, were taken during the period from the last week in September 1937 to the end of May 1938. An effort was made, when advisable, to collect spring and autumn specimens of each. Since the school year and the proper time for collecting were not coincident, most of the plants were gathered in the autumn, although many were in advanced age. There was a real difficulty in finding identifiable specimens in good condition and in making the herbarium complete. The inability to collect during the late spring and summer, the main growing season, made it easy to miss certain plants altogether or to find them in such immature states that their identification was impossible. While specimens from nearly every cultivated herb, shrub and tree were obtained and listed, no doubt some were omitted, especially short-lived annuals and recently planted trees and shrubs. It is not possible to make this list complete, since the planting of new species is continually going on. The list of native plants was compared with one made by William Van Dersal on plants collected from the Reed Campus in 1929, most of which were found again; the exceptions are noted below.
Specimens of each species have been mounted and deposited in the herbarium of Reed College.
While this paper is primarily taxonomic, something may be said concerning ecology. The plants are divided into two main groups, native and cultivated, which coincide roughly with the divisions into which the campus naturally falls, native species in the canyon section and arboretum (composed partially of indigenous trees) and cultivated on the landscaped and farmed areas. For ease of reference the places of collecting may be identified on the accompanying map.