Surficial sediment samples from 42 lakes, distributed from sea level to alpine elevations of coastal British Columbia and northwest Washington, were analyzed for pollen and spores. Pollen analysis revealed characteristic differences among the assemblages of the Coastal Western Hemlock, Mountain Hemlock, and Engelmann Spruce ndash; Subalpine Fir biogeoclimatic zones (the Alpine zone is less clearly identifiable). Cluster analysis and detrended correspondence analysis (DCA) correctly group the sites according to their biogeoclimatic zones and also by geographic origin. DCA indicates a high correlation between the biogeoclimatic zones of the sample sites and annual precipitation (minus;0.89), January temperature (minus;0.77), annual temperature (minus;0.64), and growing-season precipitation (minus;0.68). Further analysis of the samples and eight environmental gradients using canonical correspondence analysis groups the pollen assemblages from the study sites into biogeoclimatic zones in relation to annual precipitation, growing-season precipitation, annual snowfall, annual temperature, and growing degree-days. These data are useful for testing whether or not postglacial pollen assemblages have modern analogues.Key words: modern pollen analysis, vegetation, ordination, multivariate statistical analysis, biogeoclimatic zones, British Columbia.
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