A small, rare flower is on the edge of extinction, but a Vancouver Island University research team says they’re trying to save this red-listed species.
According to VIU’s biology professor Dr. Jasmine Janes says there are only five sites where this flower grows in Canada and they’re all in Nanaimo.
Janes says the goal of the research is to understand the species’ health using genetics and recommend how to help the flower propagate with the intention of introducing it into other areas across the island.
“We can either save this species from development, or we can work out strategies to try and translocate or introduce it into new areas that could be suitable,” she says.
The flower once was widely seen across the region, including in Maffeo Sutton Park and now Janes says no flower grows there and protecting the plant is important to biodiversity.
Bryan Lamprecht, a VIU biology student, working with Janes says the end goal of the research is to provide information that conservationists need to create change.
“The more we understand populations the more we’ll know how to help them in the future,” he says. “We need to help them propagate and come back from being endangered.”
The plant is known as Bog bird’s-foot-trefoil and has been the City of Nanaimo’s floral emblem since 2010.
