9416309 Panero This Americas Program award will fund a research collaboration between Dr. Jose Panero, Michigan State University Herbarium and Drs. Patricia Davila and Jose L. Villasenor, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, for a botanical exploration of the Mixteca Alta region of Oaxaca and Puebla, leading to an inventory of all vascular plants of the region. This project is part of an ongoing collaboration between the Michigan State University Herbarium and the National Herbarium of Mexico to publish the Flora of Oaxaca and adjacent regions. The Oaxaca area has been divided into ten study regions to concentrate attention on one particular sub-flora at a time. The present research will serve as a pilot project for the entire Flora of Oaxaca project. It will include enumeration of the flora, and implementation of a database system to generate a specimen database that will produce an accurate account of the floristic diversity and distribution in the State of Oaxaca. As the project matures, several other components of the relational database system will be developed. The composition and distribution of the major vegetation assemblages in the region will also be examined at this time as part of a project to prepare a chorological atlas for the state of Oaxaca. The southern Mexican state of Oaxaca harbors the richest flora in that country. In spite of the high species diversity and high level of endemism, the flora of the state has never been systematically inventoried, nor all of its areas collected. Adequately documenting and describing this flora is important in understanding the evolution of a major portion of North America flora. Because the area is under increasing human pressure, there is a need to document its floristic composition before further disappearance of the native flora. Therefore, the initial collecting efforts of this project will be directed at gathering as many specimens as possible in an area where the flo ra is most threatened by extinction. ***
