Botany Newfoundland and Labrador

eandrews@swgc.mun.ca

Announcing a new website entitled “Botany Newfoundland and Labrador” hosted by Sir Wilfred Grenfell College (http://www.swgc.mun.ca/botany)!   This site, containing a variety of Newfoundland flora topics, is intended for the general public and for visitors to the province.  Plants from various locations and habitats will be featured, the first being the Burnt Cape Ecological Reserve and the community of Raleigh.  Photographic profiles of the species, their surroundings, and the local community are presented along with a series of related links.  The site also contains the “Rare Newfoundland Wildflowers” series originally developed for the Humber Natural History Society, and a complete PDF file of the manual “Introductory Guide to the Collection and Preservation of Plant Specimens”.  The next community to be featured will be Ramea Island on the south coast. 

This is a long term project which will be updated, improved upon, and added to on an ongoing basis.  Photos will be added and those of poor quality replaced as better ones become available.  There is also a call to naturalists for contributions which will be credited to those individuals.  The site was developed by SWGC Environmental Science faculty members Ed Andrews and Henry Mann with web design involvement from two of our environmental science students, Randy Skinner and Jotham Bessey.  This project is intended to provide students who are botanically and technologically inclined with experience and training in website development and maintenance.  Our hopes are that it will help raise public awareness about one of our key natural resources (plants) and that it will add to the development of our tourism industry.  Instructions for contacting the creators are provided on the website.