The flora and vegetation of Cape Herschel, Ellesmere Island, N.W.T.

Bridgland, James Parsons (1987) The flora and vegetation of Cape Herschel, Ellesmere Island, N.W.T. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

Botanical explorations at Cape Herschel, a small peninsula on the relatively oceanic coast of eastern Ellesmere Island, Northwest Territories, have yielded a flora which includes 68 species of vascular plants, 121 species of mosses, and 44 species of lichens. -- Field typification of seven vegetation types was tested with cluster analysis and the seven types were divided into eleven plant communities. Diagnostic species were identified for each community using species constancy and mean abundance in each cluster. Environmental factors determining the distribution of plant communities at Cape Herschel were tested with direct gradient analysis and with topographic analysis. -- Floristic comparison of plant communities at Cape Herschel with those described from elsewhere in the Queen Elizabeth Islands identified 11 communities which appear to correspond directly enough to be useful for the purposes of regional vegetation mapping. A twelfth community was identified it Cape Herschel but it was not comparable to communites described elsewhere. -- Moisture, snowcover, and substrate texture have the greatest influence, in that order, on the distribution of vegetation types at Cape Herschel. Altitude and aspect were also found to control the distribution of vegetation. -- Cassiope heath, cottongrass and sedge meadows, and Luzula confusa steppe were the communities at Cape Herschel which were floristically most similar to communities described from other areas of the Queen Elizabeth Islands, but two barrens communities, two tundra communities, and a marsh community also show some similarity to communities described elsewhere.

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