Rare Plants

---

The Nahanni Aster & Hairy Rockcress are Northwest Territories plants found nowhere else in the world. The Raup’s Willow & Drummond Bluebell have very restricted distributions limited to the Northwest Territories and neighbouring areas. These plants are globally rare species that have not yet gone through the processes to assess and list species established by the Species At Risk (NWT) Act, or either the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) or federal Species at Risk Act (SARA) processes, but have been ranked by the NWT General Status Ranking Program.

NWT Plant Species with Global Conservation Concern with glacier levels at 14,000 years ago.

 
Some areas of the Northwest Territories remained glacier free during the last ice age. These ice-free areas acted as refugia that may have allowed species, such as these four plant species, to survive in the Northwest Territories during the last ice age. We still have a limited knowledge of these species and areas, and more rare plant surveys are needed.

Links

Drummond Bluebell 

Hairy Rockcress 

Nahanni Aster

Raup’s Willow