The native flora of the Redberry Lake Biosphere Region (Saskatchewan, Canada): taxonomy, biogeography, habitats and conservation

This study reports for the first time a checklist of native vascular plants and provides a comprehensive analysis of the flora of the Redberry Lake Biosphere Region (RLBR) in the province of Saskatchewan, Canada. To complete an inventory of the regional flora, I conducted intensive field investigations during 2010–2025 and employed detailed examination of herbarium collections, databases, and literature sources . Here, I analyse the recorded vascular plants by their taxonomy, origin, growth forms, habitat affinities and conservation status. The native flora includes 584 taxa (433 species, 64 subspecies and 87 varieties), of which 369 taxa were recorded for the first time. The observed vascular plants belong to 95 families and 300 genera. The ferns and fern allies include 15 taxa, gymnosperms 5 and angiosperms 564. This high species richness accounts for 42.1% of the native flora of Saskatchewan. The checklist containes 46 rare taxa (31 species, 5 subspecies and 10 varieties), i.e. 7.9% of the regional flora are at risk at the subnational (provincial), national, and global levels. This checklist will serve as a baseline for continued exploration of the floristic diversity of the biosphere region, particularly the newly acquired areas that remain understudied botanically. The status of the RLBR as the only UNESCO biosphere region in Saskatchewan makes these floristic findings particularly important, bettering our baseline understanding of its ecosystems. Continued floristic study will doubtlessly reveal more plant species, inform conservation efforts, and assist the local community in the management of this biosphere region.

• Publication year

  2026

• Venue

  Nordic Journal of Botany

• Publication date

  2026-01-25

• Fields of study

  Not labeled

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1002/njb.04865
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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