The Central Parkland Vegetation
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Within the Central Parkland Subregion, there is a continuum from north to south of grassland with groves of aspen, to aspen parkland, to closed aspen forest in the north. True parkland vegetation with continuous aspen forest broken by grassland openings is now very rare due to large scale
clearing throughout the province. In much of the rest of the Central Parkland Subregion, native vegetation is scarce because of the high productivity of the soils for agriculture. Consequently, most of the remaining parkland sites are on rougher terrain or sites with Solonetzic soils.
The grassland vegetation of the
"park" is essentially the same as that of the
Northern Fescue Subregion.
Rough fescue dominates most sites with western porcupine grass being important on south-facing slopes in the southern part of the subregion and on solonetzic soil areas. Other grasses of solonetzic areas are
June grass and western wheat grass.
Shrub communities are more extensive in the northern portion of the subregion and often extend in belts outward from the forest communities.