Category: General Botanical Interests

Botanical Interest:

2022 Outings – Friends of CMH

In 2022, a small group of volunteers from the Connell Memorial Herbarium made some botanical explorations. These outings were usually spontaneous – from a need to get outside to discover and re-discover our native plants. The first outing was May 25th to Tower Lake, a small boggy area close to Fredericton. In the collection, there are 12 specimens of the Virginia Chain Fern (Woodwardia virginica) of which two were collected near Tower Lake. As some of the volunteers have never seen this fern in NB we ventured out to re-locate the plant. The herbarium specimens, collected in 1977, had vague descriptions for the location (N. Side of Tower Lake) and unfortunately, after a long day of wading through a boggy habitat, we did not find it. We were blessed, however, with large swaths of Rhodora (Rhododendron canadense), in full bloom.

Rhodora (Rhododendron canadense) Photo: Liz Mills

Our second outing on June 11th, was to the Fred Tribe Forest near Lower Royalton. It is a preserve of the Nature Trust of NB and is now called the Sasokatokuk Nature Preserve. It is 90 acres of Appalachian Hardwood Forest with some calcareous cedar fen and abandoned farmland. A visit to the rich hardwoods forests of NB is always lovely – and we were not disappointed. Goldie’s fern (Dryopteris goldiana), Maidenhair fern (Adiantum pedatum), Silvery spleenwort fern (Deparia acrostichoides) and Blue cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides) were in abundance.

Goldie’s fern (Dryopteris goldiana) Photo: S.Belfry

The third site for a botany outing was the Lincoln Trail that runs from Hwy 102 near the Fredericton airport to the Saint John River. The property is co-owned by the Lincoln Elementary School and the Nature Conservancy of Canada. This site was chosen by Gart Bishop because of its rich wetland and stands of Basswood and Butternut. A botanical survey has not been undertaken and thus with the permission of the Nature Conservancy, volunteers collected and documented the vegetation on two dates, July 9th and August 6th. This study will be continued in 2023.

Our final outing was a relaxing botanical foray along the Schribner Brook in the Oromocto River Watershed. Clay Merrithew chose this location as a matter of general interest in the area. We started at the Schribner Brook Falls trailhead on Hwy 785 near Central Blissville. It was October 16th and the fall colours were lovely as were the flowering Witch-hazel (Hamamelis virginiana). Also in abundance was Hop-hornbeam or ironwood (Ostrya virginiana).

Photo: S.Belfry
Witch-hazel (Hamamelis virginiana). Photo: S.Belfry

Text: Susan Belfry Photos: Susan Belfry, Liz Mills Map: Google Earth

Volunteer Profile: Dr. C. Mary Young

C. Mary Young in the Connell Memorial Herbarium

The success of the Connell Memorial Herbarium is due to many people who have donated their time and expertise. However, one person stands out: Mary Young is the herbarium’s most longstanding volunteer. Since 1975 she has spent countless hours in mounting, identifying and archiving plant specimens for the collection.

Born and educated in England, she has a B.Sc in zoology and botany and a PhD from London University. She met her future husband (Dr. Murray Young) in London and after some years, they settled in Fredericton where he taught history at UNB. They raised a family of three children in a beautiful home with a large garden filled with vegetables and native plants.

Mary concentrated on identifying plants in the herbarium’s special collections such as Dr. Taylor’s Arctic Study (1944), Dr. Wein’s Yukon and NWT Study (1972) and several other collections from Nova Scotia and PEI. For more on the challenging work with the Taylor Collection please see the previous Blog, posted June 29, 2016. She played an active role in the establishment of the Nature Trust of New Brunswick (an organization dedicated to the conservation of critical natural areas), serving as secretary, president, and past-president. With her interest in plant distribution and diversity, the conservation of plants was also of great importance. For her dedication to conservation and her role in the Connell Memorial Herbarium, Mary was recognized by an Honorary D.Sc. from UNB in 2016.

As a veteran of the herbarium, Mary knows a lot about its history and she wrote an excellent account in the booklet, “The Connell Memorial Herbarium, University of New Brunswick 1838-1985”. This document is reproduced on the CMH website under About/ History of the CMH.

Her interest in the historical aspect of the collection led her to research and write of our province’s early naturalists and botanists. Her book, “Nature’s Bounty: Four Centuries of Plant Exploration in New Brunswick” was published in 2015 by the UNB Library. The electronic version of this text is freely available from UNB: https://naturesbounty.lib.unb.ca/

Both of these publications have been illustrated with Mary’s botanical sketches and paintings. As an artist, self-taught, she has sharpened her observational skills in botany by drawing the native plants of New Brunswick.

As I write this, Mary still lives in her home surrounded by her lovely garden of perennials and native ferns. Equipped with a microscope, a dissecting kit, plant keys and access to online databases, Mary continues her work on plant identification from her home. She is currently identifying and annotating some sedges from the collection and is grateful for the online digital database and high-resolution images of the collection that help in the identification of New Brunswick plants.

“This collection becomes more and more valuable as the data is available to anyone over the internet.”

Mary Young, email communication

Her thoughts on those giving their time as ‘Friends of the Herbarium’ reflect her appreciation for the many people who keep all the data, photos and specimens together:

“I think they are a remarkably dedicated group of people. It does not seem to matter whether it is field work, collecting specimens, or some routine lab job, they do it with alacrity and dedication.”

Mary Young, email communication

* The Connell Memorial Herbarium holds 205 specimens collected by C. Mary Young.

References/Sources:

Young, C. Mary. The Connell Memorial Herbarium, University of New Brunswick 1838-1985, University of New Brunswick, 1986.

Young, C. Mary. Nature’s Bounty: Four Centuries of Plant Exploration in New Brunswick. UNB Libraries, University of New Brunswick, 2015.

C.M. Young (personal communication, November 19, 2022)

Text: Susan Belfry. Illustrations: C. Mary Young. Photo: Roger Smith.

Ferns and friends

This month’s workshop focus

This week’s workshop focussed on identifying ferns, club mosses and horsetails. Gart Bishop made a terrific new slideshow introduction to the group and we put out an array of specimens from the herbarium to make side by side comparisons. Liz Mills and Gart also brought in fresh specimens to examine and compare. We have posted a guide previously (2017 New Brunswick ferns ) as well. In addition, Gart recommends the reference Northeast Ferns: A Field Guide to the Ferns and Fern Relatives of the Northeastern United States Paperback – Aug 26 2013

common-ferns-and-alliesDownload

Violet identification

In New Brunswick violets are some of our earliest flowering wildflowers.  We gathered today for a review of some key characters used to identify violets, and thought we would share the resources!

A presentation showing key characteristics for identifying violets

A booklet by NB Botany Club for identifying violets in New Brunswick, including a key  and descriptors NBVioletidentification

UNB offering vascular plant course this summer!

UNB’s College of Extended Learning is offering Biol 1846, Introduction to the Vascular Plants of New Brunswick this summer (August 19-25).   It is an intensive course in identifying trees, ferns, grasses and  wildflowers  commonly found in New Brunswick and is led by botanist Gart Bishop.

Contact the College at 506-451-6824 or celcourseadm@unb.ca for more information.

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Herbarium specimens as art

As important as herbaria are to science, I think they are also important in a different kind of way.

At UNB, we have an entire room filled with cabinets which are stuffed with specimens.  Not all of them are as pretty as the rose specimen pictured below, but I find that each one is a little slice of beauty.  Whether it’s the arrangement of the parts on the sheet to show off all the parts of the plant, how carefully they have been labelled, the way the colours have or have not changed with drying, the age of the specimen; something almost always makes me stop to look.

Someone collected, pressed and dried this plant, looked carefully at it to identify it correctly, recorded details about the where and when and why it was collected, selected archival materials and arranged it aesthetically, and filed it in the herbarium to preserve it forever.

So, while we should be inviting students of botany, environmental studies or forestry to visit our collections, I think these treasuries would also be enjoyed by teachers, artists, writers, historians, etc.  I have also seen preserved plants, plant prints and scientific style specimens sold on Etsy and admired on social media sites like Pinterest, and hung in board rooms and hotel lobbies.

High resolution scans of many of our specimens are available to view on our website: www.unbherbarium.ca.

 

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UNB Herbarium specimen: Rosa palustris Marsh.