The Flora of the Library Field is an ongoing project to document the species of native and introduced plants that make up the living environment at METRO’s Library Field. Beginning in March 2026, Mark Horton-Sacha and Devon Cummings will conduct a comprehensive survey to identify and catalog the naturally occurring plants in the upland forest and wetland communities of the site, based on a combination of physical specimen collection and photography. For each species record, the project team will collect information on their GPS coordinates, population sizes, and associated communities.
Any physical specimens will be permanently vouchered (housed) in the New York State Museum Herbarium in Albany, which will contribute to public scientific knowledge of regional biodiversity. Westchester County is underrepresented in our state herbarium, and our project will help to correct that. In addition to the survey and data collection performed by the team, the flora inventory will foster public engagement in the form of educational citizen science events and programs. Staff from member libraries in METRO’s network will have opportunities to learn from professionals how they can identify and catalog plants and join citizen science communities. Additionally, METRO will produce related programs, events, and panels examining classification philosophies and practices from differing perspectives.
Mark Horton-Sacha is a botanist, naturalist, librarian, and archivist. His interests include the biogeography and taxonomy of native vascular flora and the conservation of their communities in the Lower Hudson Valley and beyond. An active member of the New York Flora Association and a student at the New York Botanical Garden, he recently participated in the multi-year flora survey at Ward Pound Ridge Reservation in Westchester County and is coauthoring a study on several newly detected species of wetland plants that were not previously known from North America. In addition to his biodiversity work, Mark has a background in archives and libraries. After working as an archivist for a number of years at CUNY and the City of New York, he now serves as an Adult Services librarian at the Ossining Public Library.
Devon Cummings is a photographer, editor and botanist who is currently conducting two ongoing floristic studies of Rockefeller State Park Preserve and Ward Pound Ridge Reservation. Additionally, she is digitizing both collections for Symbiota and the global scientific community. Devon is also an archivist having worked at the New York Public Library’s Photography Collection and the CBS Photo Archive and is a photo editor for Getty Images.