8,725+ miles, seven border crossings, and one major truck repair across British Columbia, Alberta, the Yukon, and Alaska. Non-plant sightings: moose, caribou, bison, Dall's sheep, big horn sheep, Rocky Mountain goat, spawning salmon, marmot, and two colleagues and friends: fellow botanists Ingrid Jordon-Thaden and Tommy Stoughton (claytonia.org).
We aim to greatly enhance ongoing efforts to understand underlying drivers of speciation and diversification in the morphologically and ecologically diverse North American clade of Castilleja (Orobanchaceae). By supplementing existing taxon sampling (83 of 102 currently recognized species) with collections from the Great Basin, British Columbia, Yukon, and Alaska, we seek complete species-level representation within this clade, including multiple accessions for widespread taxa. The sampling garnered through this fieldwork will be critical for estimation of a comprehensive phylogeny, as well as downstream analyses to elucidate species boundaries and patterns of distribution, ecology, and morphology.
We gratefully acknowledge support from the Stillinger Herbarium Expedition Fund and assistance from the National Park Service and Parks Canada for completion of this project.
Music: The Passenger by Iggy Pop
