The first day of this course introduces students to the basics of using field guides, keys, and other resources to identify plants in the lab and in the field.  We will spend the morning examining simple procedures of identifying the handful of dominant species that are present on a given project site.  We will then spend the afternoon in the field practicing what was learned in the classroom.

From a regulatory perspective, hydrophytic vegetation decisions are based on the wetland indicator status of species that make up the plant community.  On the second day of the course, we will explore hydrophytic vegetation indicators and procedures designed to characterize wetland plant communities.  General guidance on the sampling of vegetation for wetland delineation purposes is given in the Corps Manual. Those procedures are intended to be flexible and may need to be modified for application in a given region or on a…