The National Wetland Plant List (NWPL) represents a collaborative effort between four Federal agencies, under the administrative responsibilities of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, to update and administer the national list. In a several-year effort, the NWPL was updated for nomenclature, taxonomy, and wetland ratings for 7828 species across the United States and territories. The wetland ratings represent the frequency of occurrence of a plant species in a wetland and are used in direct support of the Section 404 of the Clean Water Act, the Swampbuster provisions under the Farm Bill, and the National Wetland Inventory Program. The NWPL is used mostly in conjunction with wetland delineation protocols. It is also used to support wetland restoration and mitigation efforts and as an indicator to measure various environmental conditions. Updating the NWPL was a national effort involving Federal, state, academic, and public sectors. [source: Abstract, ERDC/CRREL TR-12-11]

Wetland Indicator Categories estimate the probablity of a plant being found on a site classified as a wetland. The reported categories for each species are for the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plain (AGCP) region. Seven of the species listed on this site have a different status in the Western Gulf Coast (WGC) subregion of the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plain. These are listed on the individual species pages, where applicable.

NOTE: Effective 1 June 2012 the National Wetland Plant List (NWPL) has been finalized by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. We have made the List available both as a PDF, and as an .xlsx spreadsheet. The downloads are available below:

• PDF -- 224 pages, 6.9MB
• Excel worksheet (.xlsx file) -- 1.2MB