Digital Herbarium
of Flowering Plants
of Northrhine-Westfalia in Germany

This site displays a small collection of photographs from local flowering plants species, occurring within the boundaries of the federal state NRW in Germany. It is thought to replace the former pages of the botanical field trips made during the module 'Biodiversity of the Plants' at the University of Bonn. During these short field trips, which were aimed at basic identification of local plants, it had become obvious how little the participants (including myself) knew about the plants growing in local habitats. Even among this group of biology students many of the encountered species could not be properly named and identified. From my experience such ignorance of the local flora, as exemplified by our small group, cannot be regarded as an exception, but is instead a widespread phenomenon. The causes for this lack of basic taxonomic knowledge are plain to see, but also complex and manifold. The reasons might be best explained in a historical and cultural-geographical context:
Northrhine-Westfalia (NRW) is one of the largest federal states (~34100 km²) in Germany and

Fig. 1: A electricity transformation plant at sunset, highlighting not only the industrial character of the state of NRW, but accordingly also the prioritized meaning of the term 'plant' in NRW.

it is at the same time the most populous state with more than 17 million inhabitants, mostly concentrated in the bigger cities or the urban region of the 'Ruhrgebiet'. During centuries of agricultural and industrial development, which has led to the current population, most of the state's natural habitats were destroyed or degraded. In former times most of the state's area were covered by forests, nowadays, only 26% of NRW is forested, whereby half of these forests are composed of deciduous trees (mostly Fagus sylvatica, the Common Beech) and the other half consisting of non-native, evergreen conifers (mostly spruce, Picea abies, and pine, Pinus sylvestris). Nearly all of these forests are utilized commercially and cannot be regarded as natural or even 'wild'.
Against such background it becomes clear that knowledge of the floral elements has over time diminished, either because species have vanished or have become very rare or because the knowledge itself has become less important and is not regarded as particularly useful anymore, not at least as the value of knowledge is often connected to opportunities for economic exploitation and mainstream cultural interests are shifting accordingly.
Rarely is the capability for recognition of local plants taught in elementary or higher schools, so especially the youth is kept ignorant of the local flora. As part of such general cultural development, knowledge in many fields of interest is restricted to a few specialist and botany is not an exception to this. On the other hand it can not be denied that many people love their gardens and are particularly interested in botanical topics.
Therefore, mostly as a counter-measure to my personal ignorance, I started to document the various plant species encountered everyday or in special habitats by taking photographs. At first this undertaking was quite unordered and did not follow any systematic approach, but soon special places were discovered, which offered a quite diverse and natural flora. Despite this finding, the original ambition, which aimed at collecting only photographs of naturally occurring (i.e. wild) species, was rendered impractible by the highly cultivated landscapes which represent the state of NRW even in rural regions. Often, it was not clear if species were occurring naturally, thriving due to cultivation of other plants or were self-seeded 'escapees' of nearby gardens. So, certain compromises were made and without mimicking a garden ornamental catalog, also cultivated or 'half-wild' species were included in this collection.
Moreover, most of the species were identified quite close (in about a 20 km radius) to my hometown, which is part of the adminstrative district 'Oberberg' and lies within a rural area of smooth mountains with elevations of about 300 to 400 m. The larger part of this region is used agriculturally, but due to the hilly nature of the landscape more in a extensive than a highly industrialized manner. Approximately 50-60% of the area is still forested with mixed species, so that patches of hardwood, especially beech, oak or hornbeam forests alternate with small, monocultural stands of spruce. Interspersed with the forests and at lower elevations the landscape is characterized by meadows, used for raising cattle, or fields for farming crops.

Fig. 2: A winter landscape.

The latter use of land is not very common and only found at a small scale, because the soil is stony and poor in most occasions. The region gets a fair amount of precipitation (about 1000-1200 mm a year), so that many small creeks and rivers flow through valleys with wet meadows, fen-like patches or alder forests. In summer temperature raises above 30 °C while in winter the mercury column can drop below -20 °C.
So although this page is titled 'Plants of NRW' it only does so, to demarcate the maximum area of recognition, while most of the depicted plants were found in a relative small area, which can nevertheless be regarded as a representative landscape for many environments in the state of NRW and even Middle Europe. Additionally, when searching for 'plants of nrw' using one or the other of popular internet search engines, the results indicate that the term 'plant' is used in NRW mostly in a industrial sense (power plant, coal-burning plant, disposal plant, etc.), which might be regarded a typical use of the term in NRW. Even when searching for the German translation 'Pflanzen NRW' (whereby the word 'Pflanze' in German language use does not have the double meaning as 'plant' in English language) mostly irrelevant results appear. Thus, without getting a bad conscience, the title of this page appears to be fully justified...
The pictures were taken with the built-in camera of a mobile phone or a small pocket camera, so no professional equipment was used. Basic plant identification followed a popular plant guide for Middle Europe, written by D. Aichele and M. Golte-Bechtle ^[g01]. Where necessary (and when possible), the identification was augmented by the help of a hand lens and one of the standard works of German botany: the often denounced 'Schmeil, Fitschen' ^[g02]. Most of the German plant names and also the bloom times are taken from these sources, the English plant names were taken from the English Wikipedia, while the botanic authorship and the original publications were investigated from the International Plant Names Index (IPNI). A precise species description (the hardest task...) is still missing in most cases, but will be supplemented over time.
Species are listed in taxonomic order, following, with minor modifications, the scheme of the so-called Cronquist system. Although the Cronquist system is meanwhile regarded as outdated by many botanists and replaced by newer classifications, like those of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG), it still provides a widely accepted scheme which bridges many classical concepts to modern views and ideas.
Unfortunately, I cannot call myself a specialist in taxonomy, so it is quite possible that some species in this collection were misidentified. In cases where identification is regarded obviously unsafe, the species name is prefixed with an asterisk ('*'), as for example the species of the difficult to determine orchid genus Dactylorhiza. Additionally, for most species a determination down to the level of sub-species was not carried out, as such a task requires not only a great experience, but moreover needs often the direct comparison of the species in question, which can only be provided by greater herbaria.
Anyhow, the images can support a basic identification and often exhibit greater detail of intricate features, but further taxonomic investigation can certainly only be provided by consultation of the proper botanical guides and textbooks.
Not at least to make this page available to a wider group of visitors, it is kept in English language. German academic botanists usually have sooner or later to read into the mostly English literature anyway. Nevertheless, for native speakers, a German version of this page is in preparation.
The photographs can freely be used for educational or personal use, as long as the copyright notice and proper referencing is kept in place. Larger, full quality images are available on request under the e-mail address found on the Legal & Disclaimer page.