Named after botanist John G. Packer (1929- ), specialist on the flora of Alberta and on Arctic and alpine flora, instructor in the Department of Botany at the University of Alberta 1958-1988, co-author with Cheryl Bradley of Checklist of the rare vascular plants in Alberta (1984), one of the editors of the English edition of Flora of the Russian Arctic (2000), co-author with his wife of Some Common and Interesting Plants of San Miguel de Allende (Mexico). He also revised E.H. Moss’s Flora of Alberta (1983), worked to protect Mountain Park in the Canadian Rockies from an open-pit coal mine, and is currently contributor and on the editorial committee for Flora of North America
ID is uncertain 
