Biota of North America Program

The Biota of North America Program (BONAP) of the North Carolina Botanical Garden was founded in 1969 by Dr. John Kartesz, with the goal of developing a unified system for assessing the North American biota. BONAP works closely with federal government agencies, private organizations, and universities, including the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, The Nature Conservancy, the University of California at Berkeley, and many others, to develop and provide nomenclatural, taxonomic, and phytogeographic data. BONAP's nomenclatural data, published in 1994 in the second edition of a two-volume work, "A Synonymized Checklist of the Vascular Flora of the United States, Canada, and Greenland," and updated annually, represents the most comprehensive assessment of the nomenclature and taxonomy of the North American vascular flora (north of Mexico) thus far produced. In addition to nomenclature and taxonomy, BONAP maintains an exhaustive assessment of phytogeographic distributions for some 36,000 North American plant taxa occurring north of Mexico. For some of the 500,000 state- or equivalent-level distributional records, a bibliographic reference and/or voucher documentation is maintained. County-level data are also maintained for all vascular plants found in approximately 36 U.S. states, with the goal of completing the county-level data for all 50 states within the next few years. Several thousand biological attribute fields, such as rarity, weediness, nativity, insectivory, plant habit, habitat, duration, biogeography, hardiness, medical value, and horticultural values, are also maintained by BONAP for each of the taxa treated, making the database one of the largest in existence. BONAP is to complete its 1997 Floristic Synthesis, a series of digital products intended to integrate the most fundamental components of its database, including the fully synonymized nomenclatural data, state- or equivalent-level distribution data, common names, and 45 biological attribute fields, for all 36,000 taxa, into a single package. The user-friendly system will permit complicated Boolean operations to be performed, via a mouse, while displaying the results graphically.

Data and Resources

Field Value
access_constraints ["Use Constraints: None", "Access Constraints: None"]
bbox-east-long -70
bbox-north-lat 90
bbox-south-lat 25
bbox-west-long -172
contact-email kartesz@email.unc.edu
coupled-resource []
dataset-reference-date [{"type": "publication", "value": "1998-01-01"}]
frequency-of-update asNeeded
licence ["\nAlthough these data have been processed\nsuccessfully on a computer system at the Biota of\nNorth America Program, no warranty expressed or\nimplied is made regarding the accuracy or utility\nof the data on any other system or for general or\nscientific purposes, nor shall the act of\ndistribution constitute any such warranty. This\ndisclaimer applies both to individual use of the\ndata and aggregate use with other data. It is\nstrongly recommended that these data are directly\nacquired from a Biota of North America Program\nserver, and not indirectly through other sources\nwhich may have changed the data in some way. It\nis also strongly recommended that careful\nattention be paid to the contents of the metadata\nfile associated with these data. The Biota of\nNorth America Program server shall not be held\nliable for improper or incorrect use of the data\ndescribed and/or contained herein.\n"]
metadata-date 1998-01-01
metadata-language eng; USA
metadata_type geospatial
progress underDevelopment
resource-type dataset
responsible-party [{"name": "University of North Carolina, Department of Biology, Biota of North America Program", "roles": ["pointOfContact"]}]
spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": [[[-172.0, 25.0], [-70.0, 25.0], [-70.0, 90.0], [-172.0, 90.0], [-172.0, 25.0]]]}
spatial_harvester true
Groups
  • AmeriGEOSS
  • National Provider
  • North America
Tags
  • amerigeo
  • amerigeoss
  • canada
  • ckan
  • exotic-plant-distributions
  • exotic-plant-species
  • geo
  • geoss
  • invasive-plant-species
  • national
  • non-indigenous-plant-species
  • nonindigenous-plant-species
  • north-america
  • north-american-biota
  • united-states
  • weed-plant-distributions
isopen False
metadata_created 2025-11-21T02:29:39.582955
metadata_modified 2025-11-21T02:29:39.582959
notes The Biota of North America Program (BONAP) of the North Carolina Botanical Garden was founded in 1969 by Dr. John Kartesz, with the goal of developing a unified system for assessing the North American biota. BONAP works closely with federal government agencies, private organizations, and universities, including the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, The Nature Conservancy, the University of California at Berkeley, and many others, to develop and provide nomenclatural, taxonomic, and phytogeographic data. BONAP's nomenclatural data, published in 1994 in the second edition of a two-volume work, "A Synonymized Checklist of the Vascular Flora of the United States, Canada, and Greenland," and updated annually, represents the most comprehensive assessment of the nomenclature and taxonomy of the North American vascular flora (north of Mexico) thus far produced. In addition to nomenclature and taxonomy, BONAP maintains an exhaustive assessment of phytogeographic distributions for some 36,000 North American plant taxa occurring north of Mexico. For some of the 500,000 state- or equivalent-level distributional records, a bibliographic reference and/or voucher documentation is maintained. County-level data are also maintained for all vascular plants found in approximately 36 U.S. states, with the goal of completing the county-level data for all 50 states within the next few years. Several thousand biological attribute fields, such as rarity, weediness, nativity, insectivory, plant habit, habitat, duration, biogeography, hardiness, medical value, and horticultural values, are also maintained by BONAP for each of the taxa treated, making the database one of the largest in existence. BONAP is to complete its 1997 Floristic Synthesis, a series of digital products intended to integrate the most fundamental components of its database, including the fully synonymized nomenclatural data, state- or equivalent-level distribution data, common names, and 45 biological attribute fields, for all 36,000 taxa, into a single package. The user-friendly system will permit complicated Boolean operations to be performed, via a mouse, while displaying the results graphically.
num_resources 3
num_tags 16
title Biota of North America Program