Introduction

I am Colin Ladyka, and I live in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.  Native plants are my hobby.

This web site contains pictures I have taken of flowering plants found in Saskatchewan. The site includes pictures for 54 of the 103 sedges found in this province.  The pictures are from two sources. The first is plants I have personally identified in the field. The second is pressed specimens from the George F. Ledingham Herbarium at the University of Regina. The herbarium specimens were collected and identified by many people at the university over the course of many decades, and the photographs of these are included on this web site courtesy of the herbarium.

Collaborators

I have photographed a large number of the species on this web site in the countryside near Hudson Bay, SK.  My friend Dave Biggs, who resides in Hudson Bay, located and identified many of these.  I very much appreciate his contribution to this project.

Some of the species have location maps.  They were created and kindly provided to this site by the late Derry Graves.

Cover Picture

Drosera anglica (Oblong-leaved Sundew) is depicted above.  This plant is one or two cm high, lives in bogs, and catches insects with the sticky hairs on its leaves.  Bogs are nitrogen-deficient and these insects provide an alternate source of this element.

Purpose and Philosophy

The purpose of this web site is to assist the amateur in identifying native plants.  Text has been kept to a minimum because written descriptions are already available in the various flora.  Single pictures of common species can be found in popular field guides.  However photographs of individual parts of plants are generally not available, and it is this niche which I am attempting to fill here.  Sometimes the textual descriptions in identification keys appear unclear or ambiguous to amateurs such as myself.  I hope this site will allow users to correlate these textual descriptions with pictures, and thereby resolve any questions they may have.  Finally, I hope that people will simply enjoy looking at the pictures.

Measurement

Flora contain detailed descriptions of the sizes of the plant parts being discussed.  By including a ruler in many of the pictures, I hope to encapsulate all that information and more.  The ruler has a metric scale on one edge and an Imperial scale on the other.  This site uses the metric system, and the metric edge will always be in view.  The finest resolution on the ruler is mm.

Navigation

This site contains three frames.  A frame is a subwindow within a web page.  The left-most column-like frame is the contents frame.  The top-most frame extending across the entire width of the page is the banner frame.  The large square frame in the bottom right is the main frame.

Taxonomists have organized plants into various categories.  The broadest category utilized by this site is family.  Each family contains one or more genera.  Each genera, in turn, contains one or more species.  

The contents frame initially contains a scrollable list of plant families.  Families for which I have pictures are hyperlinks and are coloured blue.  Clicking on one of these hyperlinks loads a more detailed list about that family into the contents frame.  This more detailed list contains various genera belonging to the family, and underneath each genera are various species belonging to the genera.  Species for which I have pictures are hyperlinks.  Clicking on one of these hyperlinks loads the top level page for that species into the main frame.  

The top level page for a species contains a number of thumbnail images.  Clicking on one of these loads the full sized image into the main frame.  To go back to the thumbnail page, click on the browser's BACK button, or click on the species hyperlink in the contents frame again.

Clicking on the reset hyperlink in the banner frame reloads the contents frame back to its initial configuration.  Note that the contents frame is really just one long list, and clicking on a family hyperlink near the top simply scrolls the list down to the portion containing the genera and species for that family.

Phylogeny

A phylogenetic tree of the most common plant families found in Saskatchewan can be found here.

Notes

Each full-sized picture is followed by some notes.  These usually consist of answers to questions posed in keys in Budd's Flora and Flora of Alberta.  The answers are grouped according to whether they are from keys leading to the species, genus, or family.  Answers from similar questions from both sources are placed together, and duplicate answers eliminated.    

Site Development

The web site now contains 605 species, the latest pictures added 09-April-2024. 

Added new Poaceae species Agropyron cristatum, Pascopyrum smithii, Bouteloua gracilis, Hesperostipa curtiseta, Nassella viridula, Dactylis glomerata, Setaria viridis, Andropogon gerardii, Schizachyrium scoparium and Panicum capillare.  New Rhamnaceae species Rhamnus cathartica (fruit only).  Added pictures of fruit to Quercus macrocarpa (Fagaceae). Completely new sets of pictures for Oxytropis sericea (Leguminosae), Linum lewisii (Linaceae) and Cerastium arvense (Caryophyllaceae).  Added Boechera collinsii (Cruciferae).

Website development will now pause for the summer field season.

Use of Photographs

If you wish to use any of the photographs on this web site, please contact me at 306-359-3806 after 5:00 PM Saskatchewan time (Central-Standard/Mountain-Daylight).

Links to Other Sites

  1. My friends Glen and Maureen Lee have a wonderful site containing hundreds of gorgeous pictures of both native prairie plants and cultivated perennials, at http://www.saskwildflower.ca
  2. Many plant photos at Saskatchewan Conservation Data Centre http://www.biodiversity.sk.ca/database/search.htm
  3. Native Plant Society of Saskatchewan at http://www.npss.sk.ca
  4. Native Wildflowers of the North Dakota Grasslands at http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/literatr/wildflwr/wildflwr.htm

Flora and Field Guides

The following are floras and field guides applicable to the Canadian prairie provinces:

  1. Budd's Flora of the Canadian Prairie Provinces
    Research Branch
    Agriculture Canada
    Publication 1662 1987

  2. Flora of Alberta
    E. H. Moss
    University of Toronto Press
    1977

  3. The Flora of Canada (Parts I through IV)
    H. J. Scoggan
    National Museums of Canada
    Publications in Botany, No. 7 (1-4)

  4. Flora of the Great Plains
    Great Plains Flora Association
    University Press of Kansas
    1986

  5. How to Identify Flowering Plant Families
    John Philip Baumgardt
    Timber Press
    1982


  6. Wildflowers Across the Prairies
    F. R. Vance, J. R. Jowsey, J. S. McLean, and F. A. Switzer
    Greystone Books and University of Minnesota Press
    1999

  7. Saskatchewan Wildflowers Western Area
    Lloyd T. Carmichael
    For the Saskatchewan Museum of Natural History
    Saskatchewan Department of Natural Resources
    1967

  8. Woodland Wildflowers of Eastern Saskatchewan
    Lloyd T. Carmichael
    For the Saskatchewan Museum of Natural History
    Saskatchewan Department of Natural Resources
    1966

  9. Plants of the Western Boreal Forest & Aspen Parkland
    Derek Johnson et al.
    Lone Pine Publishing
    1995

  10. Wildflowers of Alberta
    Kathleen Wilkinson
    The University of Alberta Press & Lone Pine Publishing
    1999

  11. Aboriginal Plant Use in Canada's Northwest Boreal Forest
    Robin J. Marles, et al.
    UBC Press
    2000

  12. Weeds of Canada and the Northern United States
    France Royer and Richard Dickinson
    Lone Pine Publishing and The University of Alberta Press
    1999

  13. Rare Vascular Plants of Alberta
    The Alberta Native Plant Council
    The University of Alberta Press and The Canadian Forest Service
    2001

  14. Trees and Shrubs of Alberta
    Kathleen Wilkinson
    Lone Pine Publishing
    1990

  15. Native Trees of Canada
    R. C. Hosie
    Canadian Forestry Service
    1975

  16. Wildflowers Grasses & Other Plants of the Northern Plains and Black Hills
    Theodore Van Bruggen
    Badlands Natural History Association
    1992

  17. Weeds
    A Golden Guide from St. Martin's Press
    Alexander C. Martin
    St. Martin's Press