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Chapter 2 Distribution and Description
Chapter 2
Garry Oak and Associated Ecosystems:
Distribution and Description
by Ted Lea
Figure 2.1 Looking west toward Fort Victoria in the late 1840s. Plants shown include camas (Camassia spp.), Woolly
Sunflower (Eriophyllum lanatum), Barestem Desert-parsley (Lomatium nudicaule), and Spring Gold (Lomatium
utriculatum). Painting by Michael Kluckner (Kluckner 1986; used with permission).
2.1 Introduction
When Europeans first arrived in Victoria in the early 1840s they found a landscape and vegetation that
was quite different than it is today (Figure 2.1). James Douglas noted that more than two-thirds of the
land between the Inner Harbour and Gonzales Point was “Prairie Land” (Kluckner 1986). For centuries,
First Nations people had set fires throughout the range of Garry Oak (Quercus garryana) ecosystems to
burn off trees and shrubs and promote the growth of edible root crops, such as camas (Camassia spp.)
and Bracken Fern (Pteridium aquilinum), and to create openings for hunting ungulates, such as deer and
Roosevelt Elk (Cervus canadensis roosevelti) (Turner 1999). This created the areas of prairie land noted by
Part II Understanding Garry Oak Ecosystems
Garry Oak Ecosystems Recovery Team www.goert.ca/restoration
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