BBBBB EEEEEE NN N ISSN 1188-603X BB B EE NNN N BBBBB EEEEE NN N N BOTANICAL BB B EE NN NN ELECTRONIC BBBBB EEEEEE NN N NEWS No. 34 June 28, 1992 Address: aceska@cue.bc.ca Victoria, B.C. ------------------------------------------------- EDITORIAL The main objective of BEN is a fast distribution of botanical news from the west coast of North America, particularly British Columbia. If you have any news, requests, questions etc. related to any field of botany (and at least vaguely related to our Pacific area) send me your contribution. I started BEN as a joke by sending botanical news to colleagues on the British Columbia governmental e-mail. Later I was offered to use cue.bc.ca system to distribute BEN outside the B.C. governmental network. (During the last two or three weeks our cue.bc.ca has misbehaved and has been down more often than running, and our e-mail has been disrupted. I hope that the problems are fixed, if you tried to reach me with no answer, please, try again!) Recently, BEN has been "syndicated" and is available on PLANTBIO/bionet.plants news group and on EcoNet plants.news conference/newsgroup. You can subscribe to BEN directly by sending a request to aceska@cue.bc.ca, or you can subscribe the above mentioned new groups (see a note below). I apologize for occasional slips in my English. English is my "second" language, but I don' want to go through my ghost writers and editors; BEN would lose its promptness and expediency and also my Bohemian touch. COMING EVENTS IN VICTORIA Tuesday, July 7, 1992 - Meeting of the Garry Oak Meadows Society - Swan Lake Nature House, 7:30 p.m. NORTHERN RANGE EXTENSION FOR WESTERN RED CEDAR (THUJA PLICATA) From: A single tree of western red cedar was found at Farragut Bay, in southeast Alaska (57 degrees-10 min N and 133 degrees-8 min W). The tree is on the mainland on the Stikine Area of the Tongass National Forest. It is believed to be the most northerly record for this species. The tree, about 8 meters tall with a dbh of 20.8 cm, is growing on a low productive site and is associated with Tsuga heterophylla, Tsuga mertensiana, and Picea sitchensis. The understory is composed of Vaccinium alaskense, V. ovalifolium, V. vitis-idaea, Menziesia ferruginea, Empetrum nigrum, Sphagnum spp. and other bog related species. The nearest known stand of red cedar is on Kupreanof Island and is about 45 km west and 20 km south of Farragut Bay. The nearest stand of red cedar on the mainland is about 95-100 km southeast of the Farragut Bay tree. The relatively small size of the tree and its location of about half of a km from salt water suggests that others may be present in the area. Twig samples with cones were collected and are filed in the U.S. Forest Service's herbarium at Petersburg, Alaska. RE: WETLAND ECOLOGIST POSITION (BEN #33) From: Pekka Pakarinen Dear Colleague; Thanks for the latest issue of B.E.N. (June 15). The announcement of a wetland ecologist's position is interesting as it indicates that vegetation research is proceeding strongly on BC wetlands/peatlands (I assume peatlands are included in the concept "freshwater wetlands" as in the recent, 1988, book edited/coordinated by C. Rubec). Based on this book (chapter coauthored by A. Banner, R.J. Hebda, E.T. Oswald, J. Pojar and R. Trowbridge) and also on the presentations given in 1987 in Edmonton (Banner, Pojar & Kimmins; Pojar & Roemer), British Columbia probably has the greatest diversity of wetland/peatland site types in Canada. Therefore, it is very good that further work is planned to develop the classification for conservation and other purposes. I have had a chance to look into some Alaskan peatlands a couple of years ago, and although there are no immediate plans, I hope also to do some vegetation or moss ecological research in W Canada as well. I was wondering, if it has been possible to use Coenos in MoF or MoELP (?) databases mentioned in the announcement. Best regards, Pekka P. AC: Thanks for mentioning Coenos. MoF (Ministry of Forests) uses their own program for writing vegetation tables (VTAB - see BEN #13) which includes some elements of the Ceska-Roemer program (Vegetatio 23[1971]: 255-277). The main obstacle of Coenos seems to be its simple input format - most North American vegetation data are coded in the Cornell format, in British Columbia in the BCF [orest Service] format. BALSAMORHIZA DELTOIDEA SEED AVAILABLE From: Bill Merilees Recently I collected a fair supply of Balsamorhiza deltoidea seed from the Campbell River estuary population threatened by the harbour development. I would like to make this available to any interested party who may wish to try growing this in a suitable sandy-gravel site. Last year I had a 50% success with a few seeds planted in navyjack in a flower pot. As we speak three of these have a single leaf about 5cm high and one has two leaves. This tells me they grow slowly! I also hope to get some 'plots' set up in protected areas eg. Little Qualicum Wildlife area, Rathtrevor Beach (?), Island View Beach (?), - habitats similar to that at Campbell River. Suggestions welcome. Interested parties can contact me at 248-3931 (work) or 758-1801 (evenings). Thanx - Bill Merilees RE: BALSAMORHIZA Bill, I don't think that it would be correct to plant balsam root on sites where it did not grow (such as Island View Beach). Any comments or suggestions from the readers ? BEN ON BEN Do you know Ben ? I mean Dr. Benito Tan, a bryologist and a good friend of many British Columbia botanists ? I just got a note from him from the Farlow Herbarium: "Thank you for the inclusion of my name in your BC botanical newsletter ... " Benito Tan's e-mail address is btan@huh.harvard.edu and he will be glad to hear from all his friends. HOW TO SUBSCRIBE PLANTBIO OR ECONET PLANTBIO is accessible, I hope, from USENET. (I ventured into USENET several times, but was always overwhelmed by the large number of conferences I had to skip in order to get something useful.) You can subscribe to PLANTBIO/bionet.plants directly by mailing a request to . EcoNet is a foundation-sponsored net in San Francisco. Many bulletin boards, and access to most USENET boards. For subscription info (it's cheap!) sent an Internet message to support@igc.org and ask for info on EcoNet. Please note, that this is not the free-of-charge Econet that disappeared from the e-lists in March (merged with BIOSPH-L). BIG BEN IN BARCELONA Big BEN is competing in the Olympics ! This Canadian horse is expected to win a medal in horse jumping competitions. From being an underdog he has grown up to a world class. Needles to say, we hope that our Big Ben will clear all the hurdles.