The Wisconsin Floristic Atlas is being compiled and produced at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Herbarium. It is a long-term project to map the spontaneous vascular flora of Wisconsin, a goal supported for some 75 years by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Department of Botany. Publication of the proposed Atlas will represent the culmination of many years of research and mapping. Meanwhile, existing unpublished dot maps showing the distributions of Wisconsin vascular plants will be made available by periodically posting sets of maps on the University of Wisconsin-Madison Herbarium=s web site, where they will be linked to the online version of the Checklist of the Vascular Plants of Wisconsin.

Methods.--The distribution maps are generated by manually placing symbols at exact localities cited on specimen labels or shown on manuscript maps; thus each dot is site-specific to within a few miles and specimen-vouchered by one or more herbarium specimens. Triangles are used for county records without precise location. Some records have been added from older "Preliminary Reports" (Iltis, Cochrane & Harriman 1994) and from Hartley's dissertation on the "Flora of the Driftless Area" (1962). In some instances, sight reports (made mostly by professional botanists and indicated on the maps by a "+") were utilized, these mostly for Lincoln County, central Wisconsin, and aquatic plants. Those from other geographical areas or plant groups are mostly from records of the Natural Heritage Inventory Program, Wisconsin DNR Bureau of Endangered Resources. For introduced species the year of collection or the year of earliest collection within a county is also recorded. It hardly needs to be said that many dots represent populations that are no longer extant. By the same token, the absence of a dot in an area does not necessarily mean that the plant does not occur there.

Acknowledgments.--Wisconsin specimens in various herbaria both inside and outside the state have been examined over the years, and many botanists associated with these or other institutions have provided considerable assistance over an extended period of time. We are most grateful to the directors, curators, and staff, past and present, for permission to survey collections under their care either on visits or through loans. Other individuals have cooperated by making data available in electronic form. For any particular genus, specimens may have been examined from as many as 20 to as few as four herbaria. The distribution of the species in Wisconsin was obtained chiefly from collections in the herbaria of the University of Wisconsin System: Madison (WIS), Milwaukee (UWM), Green Bay (UWGB), Eau Claire (UWEC), La Crosse (UWL), Oshkosh (OSH), and Stevens Point (UWSP). Our maps also include records contained in such important herbaria as the Milwaukee Public Museum (MIL), the University of Minnesota (MIN), and the Morton Arboretum (MOR) and at universities, colleges, and museums like the University of Wisconsin-River Falls (RIVE), University of Wisconsin-Platteville, University of Iowa (IA), Iowa State University (ISC), Field Museum of Natural History (F), Beloit College (BELC), Northland College (Ashland, Wisconsin), St. Norbert's College (SNC), and the private herbarium of K. D. Rill (Oshkosh, Wisconsin).

The maps themselves represent the cumulative efforts of numerous individuals, not all of whom can be mentioned here. The earliest mapping was done by N. C. Fassett and his colleagues and students, who during the period 1929 to 1952 published 37 "Preliminary Reports" and four books on Wisconsin plant families (Iltis, Cochrane & Harriman 1994). These works may be thought of as having an atlas function, for each species within them was accompanied by a dot distribution map based on herbarium specimens, a major innovation for a state flora. Unfortunately, scarcely any of Fassett's Wisconsin manuscript maps have survived. The majority of the maps on hand were made since 1955 by various undergraduate and graduate students and staff under the supervision of Hugh H. Iltis, especially by Stephen Gilson in 1964 and 1965, and from 1970 to the present under the supervision of Theodore S. Cochrane, especially by Christine Williams and Barbara A. Warnes during 1971 and 1972, and by Cochrane from 1970 to the present. Intensified mapping, both updating earlier maps and completing new maps, was undertaken starting in 1992 specifically for the Atlas of the Wisconsin Prairie and Savanna Flora (Cochrane & Iltis 1999) and for the current atlas project by Andrew H. Williams, Quentin J. Carpenter, Kristin E. Westad, Joseph P. LeBouton, and Nicholas I. Hill. Kandis Elliot, Department of Botany Senior Artist, redrew the base map, and she and James W. Jaeger converted the original pencil working maps to electronic format.

Although Cochrane and Iltis have assumed authorship of the proposed atlas, we are well aware of the large number of people who have contributed in one way or another to floristic work in Wisconsin, starting with the many collectors who have contributed plant records. Our special appreciation goes to those former graduate students and colleagues who are cited as authors "Preliminary Reports on the Flora of Wisconsin." Their original maps have added immeasurably to the foundation upon which this work rests, as have unpublished maps on Wisconsin Heliantheae by T. Melchert and Scrophulariaceae by F. S. Crosswhite. To them we are indebted, as we are to the many colleagues who have provided or verified identifications for some or most of the specimens in their respective families or genera. As with any floristic work, the value of the product is wholly dependent upon accurate determination of the specimens. Both authors are intimately acquainted with the flora of Wisconsin, and one of their major concerns has always been the time-consuming task of verifying the identity of each specimen. Probably the majority of the plants mapped were checked by the authors, but we were fortunate to have had the cooperation of numerous colleagues who, having identified specimens for previous studies, contributed to the accuracy of this Atlas.

We are most thankful for the assistance of the Department of Botany, University of Wisconsin-Madison, its Herbarium and Multimedia Facility, in furnishing facilities and work time for, respectively, the authors and Senior Artist. The Federal Work Study Program; Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation; Biological Resources Division, U.S. Geological Survey; and the Bureau of Research, Wisconsin DNR arranged for funding to hire student mappers.

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