urtis arrived in the Clearwater Valley in 2003. As a botanist native to eastern Washington State, he arrived with sound botanical training for his ongoing work on the vascular plants of the Clearwater Valley, as elsewhere in northwestern North America. He is also a lichenologist, and doesn’t shy away from exploring moss and liverwort diversity. He has made many new finds (new species for North America, or new to science) in the Clearwater Valley and with his partner Trevor Goward recently described a new species of spruce from the valley! And he maintains a checklist of the plants of Wells Gray, and (with Trevor) a Wells Gray lichen checklist.
Eleven of Curtis’ publications include field work in the Clearwater/Wells Gray area, and many more are in the works.
Björk, C.R. 2010. Patterns in distribution of disjunct and endemic plants in the interior wetbelt, northwest North America. Botany 88: 409–428.
Björk, C.R. 2019. Overlooked diversity in exotic Taraxacum in British Columbia, Canada. Botany 97: 329–346.
Björk, C.R. 2020. Notes on the Holarctic species of Huperzia (Lycopodiaceae), with emphasis on British Columbia, Canada. Annales Botanici Fennici 57: 255–278.
Björk, C.R. 2021. Notes on the Artemisia campestris complex in northwestern North America. Phytoneuron 71: 1–23.
Björk, C.R. 2021. Five new species of North American Taraxacum (Asteraceae). Brittonia 73: 116–126.
Björk, C.R. 2023. Centers of regionally endemic vascular plants in northwestern North America: a quantified approach. Biodiversity and Conservation 32: 1–16.
Björk, C.R. and T. Goward. 2022. Clarification of the identity of Picea x albertiana and a new nothospecies for hybrids of P. engelmannii and P. glauca. Phytoneuron 2022–65: 1–8.
Björk, C.R.,T. Goward and T. Spribille. 2009. New records and range extensions of rare lichens from waterfalls and spray zones in inland British Columbia, Canada. Evansia 26: 219–224.
Goward, T., and C. Björk. 2009. Wilf Schofield: a waterfall tribute. Botanical Electronic News 2009.
Goward, T., Y. Gauslaa, C.R. Björk, D. Woods, K.G. Wright. 2022. Stand openness predicts hair lichen (Bryoria) abundance in the lower canopy, with implications for the conservation of Canada’s critically imperiled Deep-Snow Mountain Caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou). Forest Ecology and Management 520 (2022) 120416. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2022.120416 .
Spribille, T., G. Thor, F.L. Bunnell, T. Goward & C. R. Björk. 2008. Lichens on dead wood: species-substrate relationships in the epiphytic lichen floras of the Pacific Northwest and Fennoscandia. Ecography 31: 741–750.