NB Explorations – Connell Memorial Herbarium (UNB IH)

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 11^th, 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 9^th and August 6^th. 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).

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

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

New Brunswick Museum Biota NB

NBM-BiotaNB-2018-Evite-v2-1

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.

Winter botany

Can you even do botany in the winter? There are no flowers or leaves to distinguish plants and most things are covered in snow!

This is true, but winter gives us a chance to look more closely at the foundations of plants and trees without the distractions of color or camouflage of green. The bare branches of trees define their overall shape and stature clearly, and many may be known just by this. Other shrubs and trees can be identified by their branching patterns, bud shapes and placement, stem colours etc., and even herbaceous plants have parts that show through the winter and help us figure out their names (e.g. seed pods, bracts, spines).

There are guidebooks and keys specifically for winter botany, and the internet hosts a lot of great sites describing the tricks and techniques for identifying plants in the winter, just search for “winter botany”. Here are several books we have in the Herbarium, with a page from one that would help with the birches in the photo above!

Birches in winter

Happy botanizing!

New Brunswick Shrubs

screen-shot-2016-12-07-at-3-22-09-pm Check out this presentation of shrubby information put together by Elizabeth Mills : shrubs-2016!

They are organized by habitat and season and there are some wonderful photos !

Belding’s Reef Nature Preserve

Botanizers at Belding's Reef — Gart Bishop, Susan Belfey, Liz Mills, Richard Tarn, Clay Merrithew, Carli Leroux, Bev Schneider

Chance Harbour, Saint John County. For more information about this Nature Trust site, go to: Beldings Reef Nature Preserve.

Photos and Text by E. Mills and B. Schneider

Our group of botanists met in the parking lot of the Seaside Baptist Church in Chance Harbour around 10:00 am, got organized and ventured off down the trail to the Lighthouse. Carli Leroux works with the Nature Trust and was our guide for the outing, which was intended as an inventory of the plant species contained in the Preserve. The plants collected have been properly catalogued and are housed in the Connell Memorial Herbarium at the University of New Brunswick. They are referred to as the Belding’s Reef Nature Preserve collection.

We decided to move as a group with each person collecting a different group of plants: shrubs, grasses, sedges, trees, flowering vascular plants, and ferns. The trail meanders through 4 different habitats : mixed forest, shrubby forest edge, coastal edge, and rocky seeps. Our path was a circuitous route following the designated trail going to the lighthouse and then returning on a power line trail back to the starting point.

Belding's Reef Nature Preserve Map — Aerial view of Belding’s Reef Nature Preserve, showing trail followed by botany group.

We found there was not a lot of diversity in any of the designated plant collecting groups in these habitats. However, one of the highlights was finding Sagina nodosa var. borealis. This plant is not a plant common in New Brunswick and has been reported only from coastal habitats.

White flowers — *Sagina nodosa var. borealis*

Another remarkable find was the large patch of Myrica pensylvanica ( photo below) commonly known as bayberry. This not rare in New Brunswick but is found more often on the shores of Northumberland Strait. The patch we found was 1.5 meters in height and covered a large area on the top of the rocky ledges.

scenic with shrub — Botany group behind large patch of Bayberry (*Myrica pensylvanica).*

The vistas from the trail were eye candy and could be called “sights for sore eyes”. We did enjoy the outing and got a good sample of what is common on the Fundy coast of New Brunswick.

Three Toothed Cinquefoil Sibbaldiopsis tridentata

Plantago marítima

Osmunda cinnamomea or O. claytoniana

Harebell (Campanula rotundifolia)

Coastal forest

Belding’s Reef Nature Preserve rocky shoreline

First field trip of 2016: skunk cabbages

These are some of the earliest flowering plants I’ve encountered in this province. They are called Skunk cabbage, Symplocarpus foetidus. It occurs in wet areas and flowers really early in the season, then throws up big leaves later on. It is not common in the province, in fact this is close to the northernmost part of it’s distribution.

Symplocarpus foetidus Skunk cabbage Hammond River, NB

Symplocarpus foetidus Skunk cabbage

Prompted by an inquiry by a botanist in Korea who is collecting tissue samples of this species from around the world, I checked the herbarium’s collection: we only have 8 specimens from New Brunswick in our cabinets and they were mainly collected about 50 years ago!

Time for an update, I thought, and time for a field trip too (it’s been a long winter!) So, last week, the first weekend of April, Liz, Bev and I went out on a hunt for the elusive skunk cabbage. While quite large, the flower is a little hard to see at first because it occurs in marshy, wet areas full of dead grasses!

Symplocarpus foetidus Skunk cabbage

Symplocarpus foetidus Skunk cabbage Hammond River, NB

The occasion also gave us a chance to learn more about the ecology of this very odd plant, for example: it makes scent and warmth to attract pollinating insects; it buries itself deeper in the mud each year with it’s contractile roots; and it has separate male and female flowers.

Symplocarpus foetidus Skunk cabbage

Symplocarpus foetidus Skunk cabbage Hammond River, NB

Love learning about plants!

Algal Outing to Mace’s Bay, New Brunswick

Location: Mace’s Bay, NB
Date: Saturday, October 3 2015
Lead by: Dr. Gary Saunders, UNB
Focus: Algae exposed by super low tides.
Photos courtesy of Elizabeth Mills

This was an exceptional opportunity to learn more about the underwater / intertidal flora of the Bay of Fundy. In addition to serving as the herbarium’s Director, Dr. Gary Saunders (website) is a research professor at UNB interested in algal evolution, sytematics and biodiversity.

Naturalists at Mace’s Bay, NB

Photinia on Fucus sp.

Algae Outing to Mace’s Bay, New Brunswick

Plant Explorers

Plant lovers set out into the living world to learn more about New Brunswick plants. This is from a field trip to Kouchibouguac National Park to search for rare plants led by David Mazzerole from the Conservation Data Centre.