Botanical Survey of Agguttinni Territorial Park, Baffin Island, Nunavut

Staff from the Canadian Museum of Nature (CMN) conducted a botanical inventory of Agguttinni Territorial Park (TP) on Baffin Island between July 22 and August 22, 2021. Knowledge of the flora of east-central Baffin Island was previously limited and based primarily on work done by the Baffin Island Expedition in 1950. The scientists on that expedition collected plants and lichens from very little of the area now included in the Park. CMN’s work is the first comprehensive floristic study of Agguttinni TP. The CMN staff documented and made collections of all vascular plants encountered within the park and made preliminary collections of algae, bryophytes, and lichens. Over 1000 collections of vascular plants, lichens, bryophytes and algae were made in the Park. A set including all the collections is archived at the National Herbarium of Canada at the CMN and a second set was provided to Nunavut Parks and Special Places. The CMN staff also located 158 vascular plant, lichen, and bryophyte specimens previously made within the park. A total of 140 species (four with two subspecies each) of vascular plants representing 25 families and 65 genera were identified, including one lycopod species, two horsetail species, three fern species, and 134 flowering plant species. The largest families are Cyperaceae (22 spp.), Poaceae (20 spp.), and Caryophyllaceae (15 spp.), and the largest genus is Carex (sedges,16 spp.). Lichen collections included 60 species (one with two subspecies), and 54 bryophyte species (11 liverworts and 43 mosses) and two algae species were identified. Comprehensive species lists for all plants and lichens known from the Park are provided, as is an illustrated guide to all vascular plant species and common or interesting lichens and mosses. The vascular plant collections from Agguttinni TP include one new record for Baffin Island (Puccinellia bruggemannii) in addition to records of several species not previously reported from eastern or northeastern Baffin Island. Several species are at or near their northern limits in Canada; the collections of Carex holostoma and Diapensia lapponica are the northernmost records in Canada. New records were documented for multiple species that are rare on Baffin Island. The algae, lichens, and most of the bryophytes that were collected represent common, species widespread in the Arctic.