Maine Natural Areas Program - Rank Explanations

Rank Explanations

State Rarity Ranks

S1 Critically imperiled in Maine because of extreme rarity (five or fewer occurrences or very few remaining individuals or acres) or because some aspect of its biology makes it especially vulnerable to extirpation from the State of Maine.
S2 Imperiled in Maine because of rarity (6-20 occurrences or few remaining individuals or acres) or because of other factors making it vulnerable to further decline.
S3 Rare in Maine (on the order of 20-100 occurrences).
S4 Apparently secure in Maine.
S5 Demonstrably secure in Maine.
SH Occurred historically in Maine, and could be rediscovered; not known to have been extirpated.
SU Possibly in peril in Maine, but status uncertain; need more information.
SX Apparently extirpated in Maine (historically occurring species for which habitat no longer exists in Maine).

Note: State Ranks determined by the Maine Natural Areas Program.

Global Rarity Ranks

G1 Critically imperiled globally because of extreme rarity (five or fewer occurrences or very few remaining individuals or acres) or because some aspect of its biology makes it especially vulnerable to extirpation from the State of Maine.
G2 Globally imperiled because of rarity (6-20 occurrences or few remaining individuals or acres) or because of other factors making it vulnerable to further decline.
G3 Globally rare (on the order of 20-100 occurrences).
G4 Apparently secure globally.
G5 Demonstrably secure globally.

Note: Global Ranks are determined by The Nature Conservancy. T indicates subspecies rank, Q indicates questionable rank, HYB indicates hybrid species.

State Legal Status

Note: State legal status is according to 5 M.R.S.A. § 13076-13079, which mandates the Department of Conservation to produce and biennially update the official list of Maine's endangered and threatened plants. The list is derived by a technical advisory committee of botanists who use data in the Natural Areas Program's database to recommend status changes to the Department of Conservation.

E Endangered; Rare and in danger of being lost from the state in the foreseeable future, or federally listed as Endangered.
T Threatened; Rare and, with further decline, could become endangered; or federally listed as Threatened.
SC Special Concern; Rare in Maine, based on available information, but not sufficiently rare to be considered Threatened or Endangered.
PE Possibly Extirpated; Not known to currently exist in Maine; not field-verified (or documented) in Maine over the past 20 years.

Federal Status

LE Listed as Endangered at the national level.
LT Listed as Threatened at the national level.

Please note that species names follow Flora of Maine: A Manual for Identification of Native and Naturalized Vascular Plants of Maine, Arthur Haines and Thomas F. Vining, 1998, V.F. Thomas Co., P.O. Box 281, Bar Harbor, Maine 04069-0281.

Where entries appear as binomials, all representatives (subspecies and varieties) of the species are rare in Maine; where names appear as trinomials, only that particular variety or subspecies is rare in Maine, not the species as a whole.