Squirrel Corn Dicentra Canadensis by Catherine Macleod
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SPRING 2012, VOLUME 13, ISSUE 2 NEWSLETTER OF THE NORTH AMERICAN NATIVE PLANT SOCIETY Native Plant to Know Squirrel Corn Dicentra canadensis by Catherine Macleod In Goderich, Ontario, a tornado destroyed much of the natural and built heritage – including beloved public green spaces – in August of last year. Now that Mother Nature has forced the entire community back to its natural drawing board, the planned development of a self-guided wildflower walk around the perimeter of Goderich's Maitland Cemetery will be most welcome. The heritage- and flora-rich cemetery sits on land adjacent to the beautiful Maitland Trails and valley, both of winter, which were devastated during the with its unseasonably tornado. This spring, the reappearance fluctuating temperatures of squirrel corn (Dicentra canadensis) has meant that there has been and a host of other native wildflowers no frost in the ground, which could at the cemetery will be heralded by all affect the reappearance of the usual BRIGITTE GRANTON who enjoy the natural wonders of this wildflower,” he cautions. Dicentra shaken area. canadensis will make its own call in Under the stewardship of Goderich mid- to late May. The v-shaped ILLUSTRATION BY Parks and Cemeteries Supervisor wildflower flower patch is in a shaded Martin Quinn, the Town of Goderich area identifiable by a vigorous stand of and its citizens are already in the cherry and maple trees (Prunus and process of listing much-awaited plants Acer spp.) just inside the main in the recently devastated areas. For entrance of the Maitland Cemetery Quinn, squirrel corn is a symbol of near the veterans' memorial cairn. hope and renewal. “Dicentra canadensis Quinn pointed to the rare, cemetery. Immediately, I saw a likeness will be the first sign of wild nature diminutive Dicentra canadensis (less to its larger and abundant relative regaining her balance if she shows in commonly known as bleeding heart) Dicentra cucullaria, the fancifully – but May this year,” he says. last May on a casual walk through the “The lack of snow covering this Continued on page 15 The Blazing Star is... NANPS NEWS The Blazing Star is published quarterly (April, August, November, February) by NANPS ANNUAL PLANT SALE the North American Native Plant Society SATURDAY,MAY 12,2012 donations are gratefully accepted. (NANPS). Contact [email protected] 10AM - 3PM Please label them with species and for editorial deadlines and for advertising Markham Civic Centre provenance, if known. A vast selection rates. The views expressed herein are 101 Town Centre Blvd., those of the authors and not necessarily of nature books available for sale plus those of NANPS. (Highway 7 at Warden) thousands of native plants to enhance The North American Native Plant Society Markham, Ontario your garden and provide food for is dedicated to the study, conservation, Come enjoy woodland and bog birds, bees, butterflies and other cultivation and restoration of North displays, valuable information on wildlife! America’s native flora. invasive plants and booths by Local Volunteers needed for setup on Enhancement and Appreciation of Friday, May 11 and for cleanup on Spring 2012 Forests (LEAF), Toronto Entomologists Saturday, May 12. Volume 13, Issue 2 Association, Toronto's Wild Bees and E-mail [email protected] or Editor: Irene Fedun other organizations. Native plant voicemail 416-631-4438. Production: Bea Paterson Printed by: Guild Printing, Markham, Ontario BIODIVERSITY WORKSHOP SATURDAY MAY 5, 2012 © North American Native Plant Society SHINING TREE WOODS EXCURSION SATURDAY,JUNE 2ND, 2012 Images © the photographers and illustrators, text © the authors. CHARTER BUS LEAVING TORONTO FROM WILSON SUBWAY STATION AT 8 AM. All rights reserved. EXCURSION: A rare opportunity to visit NANPS premiere conservation property in North American Native Plant Society, Norfolk County, Ontario and make your contribution to the vitality of this valuable formerly Canadian Wildflower Society, forest. NANPS Conservation Team has been working hard to control an invasion of is a registered charitable society, no. garlic mustard that threatens the integrity of Shining Tree Woods.Join the Team for a 130720824 RR0001. fascinating outing that promises to be educational and immensely rewarding. Donations to the society are tax- Following a fun few hours in the woods, we'll continue on to St Williams Nursery creditable in Canada. & Ecology Centre for a thank you supper and a tour of their facility. (Earn 3 NANPS Membership: volunteer hours for each bag of garlic mustard removed and 2 hours for every 20 CAN$20/YEAR WITHIN CANADA, species mapped toward NANPS 2012 Members Challenge) US$20/YEAR OUTSIDE CANADA Please make cheques and money WORKSHOP:BIRKDALE COMMUNITY CENTRE,SCARBOROUGH,ONTARIO 9:30 AM-1 PM orders payable to North American Excursion participants are invited to explore biodiversity, the problems caused by Native Plant Society and mail to P.O. invasive species, vegetation mapping techniques, and other conservation activities Box 84, Station D, Etobicoke, Ontario that will be put into practice during the excursion. Weather permitting, we'll end M9A 4X1. with a tour of a nearby ravine. Please join us for an educational and fun experience! Telephone: (416) 631-4438. Refreshments included. (Earn an additional 5 volunteer hours) E-mail: [email protected]. Preliminary trips to Shining Tree Woods taking place in April & May to clear Web: www.nanps.org. satellite populations of garlic mustard and set up transects for the June excursion. If Board of Directors: you'd like to join NANPS Conservation Team on one or more of these trips, email Honorary President: James A. French [email protected]. No experience is required, but if you have some expertise to share, President: Greg Hagan please let us know. Smart phones with GPS capability and/or advice on purchasing Vice-President: Paul LaPorte additional GPS units also wanted! Secretary: Karen Boniface Treasurer: Sue Stephenson The cost is only $15 for the tour & workshop. Space on our last formal tour of Eileen Atkinson Shining Tree Woods in 2004 sold out quickly. Visit www.nanps.org for more Miriam Henriques information and email [email protected] or call (416) 631-4438 to register. Self Janice Keil drive option also available. Alice Kong Gillian Leitch Please help NANPS fulfill its goal of 400 volunteer hours during this trip! Can't Howard Meadd join us? Participate in a restoration activity near you or send a pledge of financial John Oyston support for each bag of garlic mustard to [email protected]. In 2011, 45 bags of Jenn South garlic mustard were removed. Gerda Wekerle 2 NEWSLETTER OF THE NORTH AMERICAN NATIVE PLANT SOCIETY SPRING 2012 A River Runs Under It by Soraya Peerbaye Certainly we could see, during the thinking in terms of qualities of soil spring rains that first May, how green and light. I did not think of the garden Our garden began with the rumour of puddles form in a diagonal across the as a habitat or consider its possible a river. When we moved in, in 2006, far end of our garden and into our ancestry. The previous owners had our neighbours warned us that the neighbours'. In the fall the puddles tended a garden that mixed the south end of the garden would be become oblong ponds that fill with traditional non-native shade plants drenched after rains and snowmelts. dead leaves, then turn tea-coloured with a few natives: common blue Houses on the street were particularly and boggy. And in winter, on milder violets (Viola papillonacea) that susceptible to flooding; the folklore days, the snow along that line softens flourished as groundcovers at the base was that, at one time, after rainstorms, and greys, like an X-ray of a spine; of the birch and elm, and ostrich ferns residents would find small fish mist rises from it like a ghost. (Matteuccia struthiopteris) building flopping in their basements. Still, for a long time I was an their green, rustling temples at the far Our house is on Merrill, a crooked agnostic on the subject of lost rivers. It end. I had already made a decision to street in Toronto's east end, close to was difficult to imagine another try my hand at gardening with native Woodbine and Danforth. The landscape, especially in the summer plants, wanting to support wildlife in property slopes downward, so that when the water evaporated and left the some small way. Without much while the front entrance is at street ground baked and hardened. As remorse, my husband and I cut down level, the back doors on the main floor romantic a notion as it was, I or uprooted the non-natives. open onto a balcony overlooking the rationalized away the idea of the creek. Having lived by urban alleyways, garden. You can extend your arms and More likely, I figured, it was the slope highrises and streetcars for a decade, I almost touch the branches of the of the property that led to an thought of our garden as dappled and paper birch (Betula papyrifera) that accumulation of moisture. If there had sunlit – my first mistake. My second: I grows close to the easterly fence; an been a creek, I told myself, it had disdained the wet patches of the old elm (Ulmus americana) in our probably been the merest trickle, a garden altogether and turned my westerly neighbours' garden has given thread, nothing that would have attention to the moist, crumbly earth us generous shade. sustained a riparian ecology. And it elsewhere. Eager to attract butterflies, I The trace of the creek, once you had long since been buried. went to my first NANPS sale to imagine it, isn't hard to discern. So when I began gardening, I did so purchase showy wildflowers that I thought would be satisfied in these conditions: black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta), blue vervain (Verbena hastata), butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa), Culver's root (Veronicastrum virginicum), Michigan lily (Lilium michiganense), New England aster (Aster novae-angliae) and wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa).