Senecio and erechtites (Compositae) in the North American Flora: Supplementary notes

Taxonomic and nomenclatural additions and corrections are provided to update the author’s treatment ofSenecio andErechtites inNorth American Flora II. 10: 50–142, 1978.     

Banking North American buffalo semen

The purpose of this study was to develop a procedure to collect and preserve semen from wood bison (Bison bison athabascae) and plains bison (Bison bison bison). Semen samples from three wood and three plains bison bulls were collected by electroejaculation from June through October. In addition, sperm was collected from the cauda epididymis of seven plains bison. Semen was cryopreserved using two commercially available cryopreservation media, an egg yolk-based medium (Triladyl), and a medium free of products of animal origin (Andromed). Sperm morphology and motility were recorded on fresh and post-thawed semen samples. Total sperm motility was not different between plains and wood bison for the months of June (50%), July (69%) and October (54%). However, total sperm motility for wood bison was higher (P < 0.05) than plains bison for the months of August and September (August: 80% vs 55%; September: 73% vs 40%). Plains and wood bison did not differ in mean total and mean progressive motility (35 and 15%, respectively) of frozen-thawed sperm samples. The post-thaw motility of Triladyl-treated sperm was higher (P < 0.05) than Andromed-treated sperm (35% vs 13%, respectively). Interestingly, post-thawed epididymal spermatozoa had higher total motility (P < 0.05) than post-thawed electroejaculated sperm when cryopreserved with a medium free of products of animal origin (Andromed; 35% vs 9%, respectively). In conclusion, we used electroejaculation to collect high quality bison semen, and cryopreserved it for future needs.     

The information system design for the Flora North America Program

The Flora North America Program will create a computer data bank of taxonomic information about the vascular plants of North America north of Mexico. The system, which will serve a broad range of users, will provide for the acquisition, editing, and storage of data and the preparation of a variety of products. It will grow and evolve over a long period of time, continually incorporating changes to data and new categories of information as they become available. The system will utilize an existing computer program package, the IBM Generalized Information System (GIS), for creating, maintaining, querying, and generating reports from its files of data. In addition to a file of taxonomic, ecological, and geographic data about each taxon, the system will build and maintain a series of authority or dictionary files to control system content. The first major system product will be a published flora, generated by computer. Many other catalogs and indexes will be prepared and specific questions may be asked of the data bank to meet individual user needs for information.     

The Flora North America Reports—A bibliography and index

A sequential listing of theFlora North America Reports (FNA Reports) is presented, including all 83 Reports distributed or actively in preparation as of June 1977. An introduction, topical subject guide, and author index are also included.