Toronto Native Woody Plants, ranked by Native Lepidoptera species
This is the new first page of the list document which will consist of an introduction to the work and explanations of the structure and various components.
Any legends, etc. though, will still be located on the next sheet.
We will start with a description of the ""Toronto Region"" with some ideas about how it may differ from the Mid-Atlantic data that forms the core of the information presented.
The spreadsheets contained in the next two pages of this document comprise a list of trees and shrubs native to the Toronto region and grouped by genera.
The Toronto Region
The Toronto region listed here is a circular area centred on the intersection of Yonge Street and Eglinton Avenue in uptown Toronto and having a radius of approximately 50 km. This area extends to central Burlington in the west, slightly north of Bradford in the north and eastern Oshawa to the east of Toronto. The species listed are deemed to have occurred naturally here just prior to colonization by Europeans. There will be some debate as to the inclusion of certain species and the elimination of others as native to the region. The authors make no claim to perfect knowledge of the nativity of these species. Decisions were made on the basis of the flora list supplied by the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, personal communication with staff at the Ministry of Natural Resources and the City of Toronto along with personal experience in the region over the past 20 years. To be careful, we have included all species that are reasonably likely to be native to the southern portion of the province and confirmed with the Natural Heritage Information Centre database as of January 2011. I apologize for any personal bias in the selections and would ask the reader to contribute any knowledge that they may have that may contradict the information contained here. The selections contained here are particular to this document.
The Original Document
The spreadsheet on the next page - “Main List” is constructed from a list first prepared by D. Tallamy at the University of Delaware. The original list can be found at http://copland.udel.edu/~dtallamy/host/index.html. The list is not ordered alphabetically, but by the total number of lepidoptera species found on the genera presented. This number was determined through field studies conducted at the University of Delaware. As a result, this ordering is primarily appropriate to the Mid-Atlantic eco-region. This means that it is not perfectly translatable to our region. However, owing to a lack of research within our own region, this ordering is the closest available to us at this time.
The list has been modified in the following ways:
1. The ordering of the genera in the original document was by total number of all lepidoptera species, both native and alien. In this document, only native lepidoptera and woody species have been considered, so that the ordering is somewhat different in this document relative to the original.
2. Additional columns have been added to identify all species of trees and shrubs native to the southern region of Ontario. Both scientific and common names have been included.
3. The column that originally designated the cumulative percentage of species has been removed.
4. Those genera with no representation in the Toronto region have been eliminated and the accompanying totals have been adjusted.
The final spreadsheet - “Columned List” is a representation of the species commonly available and appropriate to the Toronto region with indications of their endangered species status, the relative provincial rarity (S-rank) and the coefficient of conservatism. This list is not a complete list of native tree and shrub species within the Toronto region.