Davidsonia

Davidsonia - A Journal of Botanical Garden Science

Editor, Iain Taylor writes about the role of botanic gardens in public education, citing successes and failures at UBCBG and other gardens.

The development of BC landscapes was influenced by the tastes of immigrants from Great Britain and the casual practical style of garden design that came from California. Plants favoured by gardeners in those regions did not always perform in British Columbia. The combined influences from other areas and the needs of gardeners in the region came together in a unique style of landscape fitted to the local environment.

This article introduces several archival concepts and principles, and relates them to botanical records, specifically those of the late Professor Vladimir J. Krajina. It is important to create more public awareness of British Columbia’s Ecological Reserves and the learning potential that is inherent in these sites, as well as in Krajina’s records. The records are a source of potential learning, through a web exhibit or public exhibit, which will remind the public of the value of protecting environmental space for learning opportunities and for the protection of species.

Glissading on alpine meadow snow patches in summer can be good fun; kids have a lark. Climbers returning from mountain peaks take seven league strides finding relief from jolting steps on hard rock and scree. Bears too, I believe, enjoy cavorting in summer on snow patches. Vivid in my memory, on a Vancouver Natural History Society geology field trip in 1926 to the headwaters of Lynn creek, was watching five bears playing up and down on a large snow patch north of Goat Mountain. Perhaps others have seen bears having fun?

Glissading is fun but it is not the only interest naturalists and photographers might find in the snow patches of summer on alpine meadows. Snow patches have a distinctive natural history of their own and they are part of landscapes in motion.

The Editors of Davidsonia highlight some of the most interesting and important titles from the thousands of recently published papers in the plant sciences.