Poster

         Floristics & Taxonomy

The Flora of Cape Bathurst and Baillie Island, Northwest Territories, Canada

Presenting Author
Paul Sokoloff
Description
Situated at the northernmost point of the continental Northwest Territories, Cape Bathurst and neighbouring Baillie Island are prominent coastal landmarks within the Inuvialuit Settlement Region. From the Smoking Hills on the south of the peninsula to the rapidly-eroding tip of the Cape, this area includes a wide range of plant habitats on both glaciated and unglaciated lands. As the only known locality for the rare hairy braya (Braya pilosa), Cape Bathurst and Baillie Island have long been focal points for botanical collecting – the first herbarium specimens from this areas date back to 1826, when Dr. John Richardson collected sheets of the Hairy Braya on the second Franklin Expedition.  Since then, major vascular plant collections have been made here by Frits Johansen (on the Canadian Arctic Expedition in 1916), Reider Elven (1999), Jim Harris (2004), Bruce Bennett (2011, 2015), and Paul Sokoloff, Jim Harris, and Joanna Wilson (2017, 2022).  Here we present a preliminary checklist of the vascular plant biodiversity of Cape Bathurst and Baillie Island, based on these herbarium-vouchered collections. This flora includes 181 taxa from 26 families, including many common amphi-Beriginian and circumpolar Arctic species.  Four taxa: the Jakutsk snow parsley (Cnidium cnidiifolium), the Yukon saxifrage (Micranthes reflexa), the northern primrose (Primula borealis) and the sand bluegrass (Poa ammophila) reach the northeastern extent of their Canadian Arctic Range on Cape Bathurst.  In addition to the hairy braya, another species of conservation concern in the Northwest Territories, the Drummond bluebell (Mertensia drummondii) may also occur on Cape Bathurst based on new georeferencing of another Richardson specimen (1826) deposited at the New York Botanical Garden.