The Athabasca Plain Vegetation
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Extensive forests dominated by jack pine occur on upland sites with sandy, coarse-textured
glaciofluvial, glaciolacustrine, ice-contact stratified drift, and
Aeolian deposits. White spruce is codominant with jack pine on some sites. Typical understory
species on dry sites include bearberry, and a variety of reindeer lichens. On more mesic sites, species such as low bilberry and feathermosses are more common.
Peatlands range from relatively dry bogs)
dominated by jack pine, black spruce, Labrador tea, and reindeer lichens to wetter peatlands with black spruce, tamarack, Labrador tea, and Sphagnum peatmosses. Shrubby peatlands typically contain Labrador tea, swamp laurel, water sedge, marsh reed grass, and peatmosses.
Riparian habitats are not extensive but contain mixed forests of aspen, balsam poplar and white spruce that are similar to those of the Central Mixedwood Subregion.
The environment in the immediate vicinity of Lake Athabasca is different than the main upland portion of the Subregion and there are significant differences between the north and south shores. "Park-like" open white spruce forests occur along the shore of Lake Athabasca.
A number of significant (rare, endemic, disjunct) plant species occur in the Subregion including American dune grass, tansy, bladderwort, rush and
starwort.