Alpine Plant Communities of British Columbia : 1980

1980 Alpine Plant Communities of British Columbia and Their Occurrence in
Existing or Proposed Ecological Reserves
by George W. Douglas, Douglas Ecological Consultants Ltd.

Link to report, 1980 Alpine Plant Communities.

Alpine vegetation in British Columbia has received little attention from scientists and land managers. Unfortunately, most of the work that has been done remains unpublished and generally unavailable in thesis or report form. In some instances (i.e., Brink 1959, 1964; McLean 1970; Welsh and Rigby 1971; van Ryswyk and Okazaki 1979; and others), even though the authors spent time in the alpine zone and indicate in their papers that they are going to describe alpine plant communities or vegetation, no quantitative or qualitative data or specific plant communities are given. This makes it extremely difficult or often impossible to document the plant communities of an alpine area and therefore characterize general features such as wildlife, soils or mesoclimate.

This paper will review studies pertaining to plant communities in the alpine zone (or that area above trees or krummholz) of British Columbia and immediately adjacent regions (see Table 1). Studies in adjacent regions are included since more work has been conducted in the latter than inside British Columbia and since all the study areas are within several kilometers of the border most of the plant communities may be expected to occur within British Columbia. The occurrence of these plant communities in established or proposed ecological reserves is also documented (Table 1).