A guide celebrating BC biodiversity
Native Plants of British Columbia’s Coastal Dry Belt: A Photographic Guide
by Hans Roemer and Mary Sanseverino
Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2025
$29.95 / 9781998526000
Reviewed by Nancy J. Turner
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British Columbia’s Coastal Dry Belt is a plant guide unlike any other. It is an invaluable addition to the environmental literature, both printed and in digital form, for the special climatic region of northwestern North America, including southeastern Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands, as well as drier areas of the BC mainland coast and northwestern Washington State. Not only do the two distinguished authors describe and illustrate, in exquisite detail, the broad range of plants that comprise the flora of this bioregion, but they introduce us to the preferred home places of these plants, and to the other species that share these special locales.
This book, in short, celebrates biodiversity, not only at the species level, but at the community level: from Douglas-fir–Arbutus forest to hill-country pocket grasslands; from peat bogs to tidal marshes and mud flats; from beach and sand dunes to bare and mossy rock habitats. Virtually all the native vascular plants of the region are featured, along with bryophytes and some lichens. Particularly helpful, even for seasoned botanists, are the descriptions and photos of the representative grasses, sedges, ferns, and mosses, along with those of numerous species of the smaller, less conspicuous “flowers,” arranged within sections reflecting their preferred habitats, together with others expected in similar environments: their habitat mates. The photographs of all the plants are stunning, many of them so “up close” that you can see the defining hairs, scales or tiny spore cases clearly, with other, equally beautiful photos showing the plants’ environmental contexts. Together, the descriptions and photographs facilitate plant identification, helping us to get to know these species as botanical friends.
The book also conveys an important message on the ecological significance of the special habitats covered, and about the decline and fragmentation of these habitats and their biodiversity. This is due in large part to the (often uncontrolled) takeover and conversion of prime areas for agricultural, industrial, or residential use, including road and parking lot construction and the draining of wetlands. The impacts of numerous invasive species and, most recently, of climate change are also reflected here. The situation, so effectively told in the botanical story the authors present, is of great concern, and reflects a worldwide threat to our precious natural habitats. The details are well reflected in the quantitative component of the book, providing the relative presence of key species for each different habitat included. In many ways this book represents an initial step to be taken anywhere, in first assessing, and then finding ways to confront and address this critical, global problem of biodiversity loss.
This book offers a whole new adventure for naturalists, botanists and all those who love the natural world, luring all of us into the outdoors, to check out the plant relationships reflected in the different sections, to see those plants we are familiar with as parts of a larger complex, and to get to know the smaller, perhaps previously overlooked species that have now been introduced to us in such intriguing ways. Hans Roemer has been a long-time friend from the time when he first arrived in Victoria from Bavaria, and it has been such a pleasure to botanize with him and our other botany friends over the decades. Mary Sanseverino, computer science professor emerita – turned botanist, has contributed her own research, photographic, and writing expertise to this fruitful collaboration. Together, they have crafted such a rich, fascinating and unique botanical contribution. Hopefully, it will pave the way for others to follow in other parts of BC and Washington and beyond.
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Nancy J. Turner, PhD, CM, OBC, FRSC, FLS is Professor Emerita at the School of Environmental Studies at the University of Victoria. She is the author of Plants of Haida Gwaii: Third Edition, Plants, People, and Places: The Roles of Ethnobotany and Ethnoecology in Indigenous Peoples’ Land Rights, and Ancient Pathways, Ancestral Knowledge: Ethnobotany and Ecological Wisdom of Indigenous Peoples of Northwestern North America. Her book Plants of Haida Gwaii: Third Edition was reviewed by Jasḵwaan Bedard.
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The British Columbia Review
Interim Editors, 2023-26: Trevor Marc Hughes (non-fiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction)
Publisher: Richard Mackie
Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an on-line book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.
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