Rare Vascular Plants of Alberta

Sandy Campbell is a reference librarian in the Science and Technology Library at the University of Alberta.

The use of the word “rare” in the title is misleading. One of the
most basic things that we understand about plant communities is that
they do not obey artificial jurisdictional boundaries defined by human
beings. Plants grow where environmental conditions are right for them.
It happens that Alberta’s borders are near the extremes of many
plants’ natural ranges. Many of the plants in this book are not
“rare,” but are “peripherals” on the edge of their ranges or
“disjuncts,” being separated from their main ranges. If you move
further into their ranges, these plants are plentiful. The North
American range maps included for each species make this clear. Of the
485 species listed, 7 percent are rare in Canada; if the United States
were included, the number would be much lower.

Rare Vascular Plants of Alberta is highly academic, being the result of
much research and hard work constructing a database. There is an
extensive glossary, an index, and several appendixes, and the
bibliography reads like a who’s who of Canadian botany. The book is
organized by plant classification. There are sketches of each plant,
showing important points for identification, as well as provincial maps
for locating growing sites in Alberta. The text provides detailed
descriptions of the plants, leaves, flowers, and fruits, as well as
extensive notes that often compare the species with similar or related
ones. There are photographs of many of the plants; the photos are small,
about 5 cm square, so detail is difficult to see, making them less
useful for identification.

While its intent is to catalogue “rare” plants, allow people to
identify them, and encourage conservation of them, the book is likely to
appeal to people with some background in botany rather than the general
public. Still, it is an impressive collection of information and
attractively designed. Recommended for academic libraries and libraries
supporting strong natural history collections.