Heritage Community Foundation Presents
Alberta Online Encyclopedia
Top Left of Navigation Bar The Canadian Shield Region Title
Species at Risk in AlbertaView our site layout to navigate to specific areasSearch our site for informationObtain help for navigating our sitePlease emails us your questions and comments!View our partners that helped us in this project

Back to Natural Regions map
The Boreal Forest Region
The Canadian Shield Region
The Foothills Region
The Grassland Region
The Parkland Region
The Rocky Mountain Region

Visit Alberta Source!
Visit the Heritage Community Foundation
Visit Canada's Digital Collections

The Kazan Upland Vegetation

"Rocky" ForestThe vegetation of the uplands is a mosaic of rock barrens, Jackpine open forest on sand plains and rocky hills, and black spruce in wet depressional peatlands. Jack pine forests are most widespread, especially in the northeast, and often contain aspen.

The understory of these forests is quite simple and lichens are often as important as vascular plants. The forests of rocky sites typically contain jack pine, black spruce, paper birch, Saskatoon, bearberry, three-toothed saxifrage, pasture sage, and reindeer lichen.

Green Alder On glaciofluvial, ice-contact stratified drift, and till deposits with Podzolic soils, forests of jack pine, paper birch and black spruce have a better developed understory with green alder, bog cranberry, bearberry, low bilberry, rattlesnake plantain, crowberry, bunchberry, Labrador tea and reindeer lichens.

Peatlands are mainly acidic, nutrient-poor bogs dominated by black spruce, tamarack, Labrador tea, reindeer lichens and peatmosses. Discontinuous permafrost is widespread in the peatlands. Fens are rare due to the acidic nature of the bedrock and soils, as well as the rocky lake shores.

Information provided by and printed with the permission of Alberta Community Development, Provincial Parks and Protected Areas.

Albertasource.ca | Contact Us | Partnerships
            For more on the natural history of Alberta, visit Peel’s Prairie Provinces.
Copyright © Heritage Community Foundation All Rights Reserved