Plant Ecology of the Pacific Northwest
Plant ecology lessons featured in Kathryn’s Instagram stories, learned while Kathryn studied forestry at UBC. Explore this beautiful island rainforest in British Columbia and see some of the inspiration behind Kathryn’s paintings. All photos are © Kathryn Beals, unless otherwise stated.
Learn Trees
This is a section on the most common deciduous and coniferous trees in our temperate rainforest.
Shrubs, Flowers and Ferns (coming soon)
A collection of the most common woody shrubs, berries, flowers and ferns.
Mosses and Saprophytes (coming soon)
An introduction to the vast biodiversity of fungi and mosses that grow in the temperate rainforest.
About this Section
About artist Kathryn Beals
I’m a self taught painter and former forester, and much of my artwork is inspired by the amazing plants and trees in these forests. Read the story of my forester’s ring or my aspen leaf logo.
Now as a professional artist, I want to use my work to promote conservation and appreciation of the natural world.
Where is this place?
I live on a small island in the Salish Sea, on the west coast of British Columbia. This area is known as a temperate rainforest, and contains a large amount of biodiversity.
Go to this page to see the making of my 3D Salish Sea map, above, based on the map by Stefan Freelan.
To learn more, check out this book
This is intended as a brief picture gallery of the most common species on our island, with Kathryn’s photos. To learn more, we recommend Pojar & Mackinnon’s Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast, the main source of information for this guide. You can also check out iNaturalist, an app that can help you identify plants and wildlife.