​Pennsylvania Plant Conservation Alliance

The goal of the Pennsylvania Plant Conservation Alliance (PPCA) is to safeguard and steward Pennsylvania’s rarest plant species. DCNR is the jurisdictional agency over plants for the state, and this serves our mission of conserving native wild plants within Pennsylvania.  

PPCA works to ensure the most imperiled plants remain on the landscape and do not become extinct, to steward existing populations on the landscape, and to contribute to the understanding of rare plant taxa. Recovery plans for these species guide PPCA by prescribing actions and goals.  

Currently PPCA is facilitating projects to reach those goals for over a dozen species, primarily those that are G1-G3 (ranked as globally imperiled, threatened, or rare by NatureServe). Projects include seed collection and propagation, populations genetics, pest management, and population monitoring. 

The PPCA Guidance Document Executive Summary provides a summary of best practices to employ for rare, threatened, and endangered plant conservation work including guidance for:

• Field site visits
• Public land access and permitting
• Seed collection 
• Plant tissue collection
• Plant rescue and translocation
• Plant propagation
• Propagule outplanting

This work is done in partnership with experts from universities, field stations, gardens like Longwood Gardens and Mt. Cuba Center, and other institutions. We also work closely with the Pennsylvania Natural Heritage Program botanists to do this work.

To learn more about the work of PPCA, please see the PPCA story map.