Picea sitchensis, from the UBC Botanical Garden Archives
A photograph from the John Davidson lantern slide collection (more about the collection in this entry) that lacks any associated information. Who is the man in the photograph? Where is this stand of Sitka spruce (likely, British Columbia)? Or, more likely, where was this stand of Sitka spruce?, as this photograph seems to be taken from the edge of a clearcut. When was this photograph taken?
For more information about these largest of spruces, though, there are thankfully some resources at hand via the Virginia Tech Forestry Department and Tree Species of the World’s Boreal Forests.
Botany resource link: Taxonomic Botany and Floristics in North America, North of Mexico: A Review by James Reveal and James Pringle, details a history of taxonomic botany that spans five centuries. It was written for the Flora of North America project.
Every day I look forward to the Botany Photo of The Day and what I might learn from the links. I especially enjoyed this old photo with the forest of giant sitka spruce behind John Davidson and the realization that the ecology of his world was changing even then.