Native Woody Plant Seed Collection Guide for British Columbia

Abstract

Interest in British Columbia’s native plants is flourishing. They are finding increasingly diverse uses in rehabilitation and site remediation of logging roads and log landings, and in the restoration of forest landscape slides, riparian zones, wetlands, and fragile desert areas. In addition, native plants provide beauty and utility in the context of maintaining natural and managed ecosystems. As people continue to utilize native plants, there is a need to develop standard practices for seed collection, vegetative propagation, and nursery culture of these species. The goal of this guide is to address the issue of native woody plant seed collection by presenting information on collection practices, species descriptions, and photographs that aid the collector in identifying key features of flowers, fruits, and seeds during the stages of flowering, forecasting, and collection. Our major focus is to provide “baseline” collec- tion information and photographs that will be of use to the seed col- lector, the nursery person, the hobbyist, and anyone with a desire to collect seed and propagate native plants. As a colour field guide to seed collection, this document complements and supplements both local guides to plant species identifi- cation and more detailed works on seed biology. We hope users of the guide find both useful information and also inspiration to investigate further the beauty of native plants in their natural environments. While the species contained in this guide are all native to British Columbia, some of the species range as far south as California, and as far east as Ontario. This guide includes species that are woody in nature. With the excep- tion of common juniper, the plants in this guide are angiosperms (seeds borne within covered fruit) and dicotyledons (two seed leaves). The species are mainly broadleaved and deciduous, although a few are broadleaved evergreens. The common juniper (Juniperus communis) is the only coniferous species (gymnosperm) in this publication. Although juniper has ever- green needles and is cone-bearing, the appearance of the fruit is “berry-like,” thus the fruit is handled in a manner similar to hardwood species. For conifer cone collection, refer to A Field Guide to Collecting Cones ofBritish Columbia Conifers (Portlock 1996).