The Evolution of Canada’s Flora

Canada’s flora, although it does not display the richness of a tropical flora nor the antiquity of an old world flora, is unique in its newness; for the most part it began with the last glaciation and is still expanding northward as glaciers recede and climate moderates. In fact, Canada’s flora is in the process of evolving and it was most fitting that the theme and title of the Founding Meeting of the Canadian Botanical Association, held at Carleton University, Ottawa, in May 1965, should be The Evolution of Canada’s Flora. This volume of contributors to the colloquium presented at the founding meeting contains a series of original technical papers on some distinctly Canadian aspects of botany by distinguished botanical scientists.

The effects of climate, glaciation, and human habitation upon the evolutionary patterns of vegetation have not yet been precisely determined and so the general tone of these submissions is necessarily explorative and speculative as well as analytic. Five general studies present evidence in defence of the authors interpretations of evolutionary, adaptive, and distributive phenomena within specific families of Canadian flora, and offer some general conclusions about the nature of vegetative evolution. Two other papers are concerned with investigating and evaluating some of the factors which affect the growth and survival of certain specific varieties of vegetative organisms. An introductory essay by Marcel Raymond contains his personal recollections of a pioneer in Canadian botany, Fr re Marie-Victorin.