A new book, titled Wildflowers of Nova Scotia: A pocket guide to common native flowers and shrubs, is going to prove a handy source of information for anyone who enjoys the outdoors.
The unique little book was inspired by Wolfville resident Carole Donaldson volunteering her time to mount herbarium specimens at the Irving Environmental Science Centre at Acadia University.
“I’ve always had plants,” she says, but spending time in the botanical gardens “was a way of learning.” The garden consists of nine native habitats of the Acadian Forest Region.
When Donaldson and her husband, Howard Williams, decided to collect information on native wildflowers and shrubs, they’d only lived in Wolfville for three years. Not being botanists, they had much to absorb about native plants.
Originally from the United Kingdom, they have enjoyed living and working in countries as diverse as Denmark, Sierra Leone, and New Zealand. Williams is a retired geoscientist, who became a hydrogeologist, while Donaldson was an environmental issues analyst.
As previous Ontario residents, they were frequent users of a series of pocket-sized guides prepared by a naturalist group there. They could find nothing similar here.
As they accumulated data and developed their own garden of native plants, the couple thought fellow members of the Blomidon Naturalists Society, based in Wolfville, would find a Nova Scotia wildflower guide handy, too. Williams believes the 10 by 17 centimetre pocket guide will fill an important role in multiple backpacks.
“To our knowledge, there are no other pocket-sized guides to native wildflowers and shrubs for Nova Scotia,” she says. “Non-specialists need to have something they can slip into a pocket and use when they see plants that they do not recognize.”
Seventy-five pages of full colour images, along with some brief informative text, are designed to aid in the identification of 170 of the most common native wildflowers. Donaldson and Williams had to whittle down the list from over 600 possibilities.
“It was fun. A labour of love.”
For example, there are 20 kinds of goldenrod species found in Nova Scotia. The authors have depicted just eight.
If the photos don’t grab your immediate interest, the names are bound to - just imagine, if you can, what Nodding Beggarticks or Howell's Pussytoes look like. The fuzzy plant is named for an American botanist who collected the first known specimens in 1887, but it, like many in the book, have related ethnobotanical stories and medicinal uses if you want to delve in.
The listings are by colour, so readers can flip through the pink and red section to see seven varied orchids.
I knew there are native rhododendrons in the bogs of Nova Scotia, but I had no idea that the white-flowered Labrador Tea was one of them. I was pleased to read that all three of our native roses are fragrant and pink – unlike the invasive white rose one sees everywhere lately.
The authors put out a call for photos and received over 4,000. The images of 11 photographers, including Williams, were included in the final guide.
Many were received not labelled or mislabelled, so Donaldson says they were glad to have the COVID-19 lockdown time to work on the book.
“It was fun,” she said. “A labour of love.”
They even found it vital to learn the Latin names of their chosen plants. But their basic intent was the creation of a handy resource for the average person.
The Blomidon Naturalists Society printed 500 copies of Wildflowers of Nova Scotia. Unfortunately, a couple of errors slipped by the two botanists who proofread the guide, so Williams says a small errata card is being inserted.
All profits will help fund conservation and education to benefit the natural environment. The guide is available from the society web site for $20 plus postage. (blomidonnaturalists.ca)
Did you know?
The Blomidon Naturalists Society (BNS) is an active field naturalists’ organization based in the eastern end of the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia. It was formed in 1974 and currently has over 100 family and single members. Williams edits and writes for the BNS quarterly newsletter.
