We interlinked with another website, Maryland Biodiversity Project (MBP), which tracks not only plants but all living organisms in the state of Maryland. What this means is that, where records exist, the plant pages (2,949 have been linked up) on our site now link to the corresponding pages on MBP. We still have 285 unmatched records which require manual review (such as because the scientific names don't match, which is common when plants classified differently by different authorities.)
MBP is super significant for two reasons. Not only is it the most valuable resources for researching plants in the state of Maryland, but it addresses a hole or weak point in the data on plant distribution.
The main two sources people use when researching plant distribution in the US are the USDA PLANTS database, and BONAP, which is a non-profit that has expanded on and improved the USDA PLANTS data. Both of these sites have county-level data for most of the entire lower 48 states. However, for some reason, Maryland lacked such data. BONAP had been gradually improving on this, and had made significant progress, but since BONAP covers the whole US, it still had quite a few instances of missing data.
MBP is super thorough, filling in extensive gaps and giving unparallelled, comprehensive coverage for the entire state.
We give the example below of a specific plant: American Burnweed (Erechtites hieraciifolius), which is a common weedy plant that is native and ecologically beneficial. This species had extensive missing data in the USDA, and still some missing data in BONAP, but it actually occurs in all counties of Maryland as reported by MBP (anyone in Maryland can check this, it's a common plant and you can find it just about anywhere!)
Especially if you live in Maryland, check out MBP! It is a very cool project and covers a lot more than just plants.
