Moss-Lichen Flora of St. Elias-Kluane Ranges, Southwestern Yukon

Field: Agricultural and Biological Sciences (Life Sciences)

One hundred eighty-nine moss taxa including 181 species and 193 lichen taxa including 190 species are reported from the St. Elias-Kluane Ranges, southwestern Yukon (60'-62' N, 137'-141' W). Sixteen of the moss taxa and 74 of the lichen taxa represent new records for the Yukon. The list includes all literature reports as well as recent collections. In many regions of North America our knowledge of the moss and lichen floras is sparse in comparison with the vascular plant flora. This is especially true for the more northern areas. This paper provides a checklist of mosses and lichens for one of these areas; the St. Elias Mountain-Kluane Ranges in the southwestern Yukon (60'620N, 1370-141oW). GEOLOGY AND GEOMORPHOLOGY The geologic history of the St. Elias-Kluane Ranges has been presented in detail by Sharp (1943), Bostock (1952), Kindle (1952) and Muller (1967). In general, the mountains consist of a complex eugeosynclinal assemblage of sedimentary, volcanic and intrusive rocks with established ages ranging from Devonian to early Tertiary (Muller, 1967). Common rocks in the northern sector of the region include greenstone, greywacke, quartzite, slate, phyllite, marble, argillite, granite and granodiorite. Farther south, shale, sandstone, andesite, basalt and other volcanic rocks become important. During the Pleistocene most of the St. Elias-Kluane Ranges were covered by ice at various times with the ice sheet ending just north of Kluane Lake. Ice filled all the valleys in the Kluane Ranges to elevations of 1825-1980 m (Kindle, 1952; Day, 1962; Muller, 1967). This extensive glaciation resulted in widespread deposits of glacial till. Lacustrine parent materials are also important in the region, most notably in the Alsek and Dezadeash River valleys where a large proglacial lake (Recent Lake Alsek) was dammed by the Lowell Glacier about 125 years ago and had an upper shoreline at either 1The following taxonomists kindly identified some of the more difficult specimens: H. Ando, I. M. Brodo, Z. Iwatsuki, T. Koponen, E. Lawton, K. E. Ohlsson, M. Ostafichuk, W. L. Peterson, H. Robinson, A. C. Skorepa, J. W. Thomson, W. A. Weber and P. Y. Wong. We also thank Gloria G. Douglas for her aid in the field and in preparation of the manuscript. We are grateful to the National Research Council of Canada (Grant No. A6390) and to the National and Historic Parks Branch of the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs through the Canadian Wildlife Service, Department of Environment, for funding this research. Laboratory facilities provided at Kluane National Park Headquarters are also appreciated. 2 Department of Botany, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2E9. 3 Present address: Douglas Ecological Consultants Ltd., 202-737 Fort Street, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada V8W 2V1. This content downloaded from 207.46.13.128 on Tue, 06 Sep 2016 05:46:37 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 438 THE BRYOLOGIST [Volume 79 640 m (Kindle, 1952) or 604 m (Johnson & Raup, 1964). Other surficial deposits in the region include alluvial gravels, sand dunes and loess. The latter is most abundant in the Slims River valley where constant winds create dust clouds that blow eastward to Kluane Lake.