Please join us for the ‘Botany Blast’ plant ID session on Wednesday, May 20th, 2026.
We will have a guest, Denis Doucet, who will take us through all the interesting features of using the app, iNaturalist. Denis works for the Fundy National Park, officially as an Interpretation Coordinator, yet he is a naturalist with a long career studying marine biology, insects and birds. As well as Parks Canada, he has worked with the Atlantic Canada Conservation Data Centre, the Irving Eco-center and in the ecotourism industry. He is currently the president of Nature Sussex and a former VP of Nature NB.
The UNB Herbarium will be open for its regular plant identification session from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm. Denis will give his iNaturalist talk at 12:00 noon. To gain the most benefit of this talk, it would be useful to have a cell phone with the app downloaded.
New Brunswick has four species of Trilliums. They are in full bloom now and worth finding in order to enjoy their beauty. Trilliums are in the Lily Family and are spring flowers growing in woodlands, especially hardwoods. Their leaves are in a single whorl of 3 and the single flowers are large. Everything comes in 3s with trilliums; 3 petals, 3 sepals, 3 leaves.
The Painted Trillium grows 8-20″ high. The flower (shown above) is white with beautiful crimson veining at the base of each petal. It likes coniferous woods more than the other species.
The Nodding Trillium grows 6-20″ high and hides its flower by suspending it under the leaves. It ‘nods’ beneath the leaves. The flower is white with pink anthers. The petals are curved backward at the tips. It likes rich deciduous woods and floodplains. It is also called Birthroot because native people once used the root to assist in childbirth.
The Purple Trillium is probably our most common trillium. It is found in hardwood forests. It grows 6-20″ high. Its beautiful purple colour is good to look at but don’t try to smell this one; it has a foul odour. That explains why it is sometimes called Stinking Benjamin.
The White Trillium is our largest and rarest trillium. It is the provincial flower of Ontario and occurs here in only one or two known places. It grows 12-20″ high. Its flower is 2-4″ wide and is very showy. The white flower turns pink with age. It is easy to distinguish from the Nodding Trillium which also has a white flower because the White Trillium’s flower is upright and much larger. It also has yellow stamens, differing from the pink anthers of the Nodding Trillium. The White Trillium is sometimes called the Large-flowered Trillium.
This week, April 15th, in the Botany Blast ID session we are going to look at some of the plants of the clubmoss family.
Learn the distinquishing features of the Genera: Diphasiastrum (ground-cedar), Dendrolycopodium (tree-clubmoss), Lycopodium (clubmoss), Lycopodiella (bog clubmoss) and Huperzia (firmoss).
‘Botany Blast’ Wednesday, April 15th – from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm in Room 13 – Bailey Hall, UNB Fredericton.
Everyone is welcome and it is free. If you have any questions, please contact Robyn at the UNB Herbarium: plants@unb.ca
On February 18, 2026, Gart Bishop presented a fascinating and informative workshop on how to identify New Brunswick trees and shrubs during the winter. Gart, Liz Mills, Bev Schneider and Clay Merrithew, all “Friends of the Herbarium”, collected fresh branch and twig specimens from local trees and shrubs. Specimens, some with attached catkins and fruit, covered two long tables in the lab, and books covered a third table.
Here are a few of the books:
• Stocek, Rudolf F. (1991) New Brunswick Trees and Shrubs in Winter:/ A Field Guide. Canada-New Brunswick Cooperation Agreement on Forest Development. -Excellent diagrams throughout the book.
• Farrar, John Laird (1995) Trees in Canada. Fitzhenry & Whiteside Ltd./Canadian Forestry Service. -Keys for winter identification of deciduous trees to genus or species level are located at the back of the book.
• White, J. H. And R. C. Hosie (1968). The Forest Trees of Ontario. Department of Land and Forest. -A small book that includes a simple key for identification of native deciduous trees in the winter.
Gart began the PowerPoint presentation by illustrating select species, and showing us how to identify them without the presence of leaves, flowers and in most cases, fruit. Identifying deciduous trees and shrubs in the winter can be difficult, but by examining certain features and asking simple questions, you can succeed. Diagnostic features include: 1. Branching pattern or leaf bud arrangement. Alternate or opposite? 2. Leaf buds. Size, shape, number of scales or no scales, hairs or no hairs, sticky? 3. Stipule scar. Shape? 4. Pith. Colour, shape? 5. Twig. Colour, lenticels, odour when scraped or peeled? 6. Bark. Colour, texture? 7. Fruit. Any remaining fruit? What does it look like? 8. Flower buds. Visible? 9. Unique features. Galls?
Using dissecting kits and microscopes, we examined the fresh specimens. Hobblebush (Viburnum lantanoides), a common early flowering shrub, has opposite buds and no bud scales. Willows (Salix spp.), common early flowering shrubs, have alternate compressed buds with only one bud scale. I learned that you can easily identify Red-tipped Willow (S. eriocephala) by the presence of pinecone galls on the tips of some branches. Pinecone gall is almost exclusively found on this willow species.
Some species such as Chokecherry (Prunus virginiana) have alternate buds with many bud scales. When you peel or scrape the bark of Chokecherry you can smell a bitter earthy odour from hydrogen cyanide released by the fresh tissue. The desiccated light brown leaves of American Beech (Fagus grandifolia) often remain on the tree until late winter which makes identification easy. However another diagnostic feature are the large, long, narrow buds with imbricate scales and a visible stipule scar present even when the leaves have fallen off.
Alder (Alnus spp.) is a thicket forming shrub, but two common species in New Brunswick can be difficult to differentiate. The stalked buds of Speckled Alder (A. incana ssp. rugosa) distinguish this species from Green Alder (A. viridis ssp. crispa). Separate male and female catkins (monoecious) often remain on the branches during the winter, and are helpful for identification.
Pith colour can help you distinguish between similar looking species. Black Elder (Sambucus canadensis) has a white pith and Stinking Elder (S. racemosa) has an orange pith. Butternut (Juglans cinerea), a declining tree species due to Butternut canker disease, has alternate buds, a long terminal bud, and is the only native species with a chambered pith. You can clearly see the chambered pith when you cut the branch on the diagonal.
Beaked Hazelnut (Corylus cornuta), a monoecious shrub, has male and female flowers that open in early spring before the leaves. The male catkins are visible in the winter, but the female flowers are hidden in tiny buds. The female flower buds are rounder than the leaf buds.
Corylus cornuta, male catkin- S.BelfryCorylus cornuta, female flower- S.Belfry
Birch trees (Betula spp.) have alternate buds and when young the different species can look similar. You can easily identify Yellow Birch (B. alleghaniensis) by scraping the bark to release the wintergreen odour. Odour is also a diagnostic feature of Sweet Gale (Myrica gale), a common shrub in bogs. When you crush the buds, a nutmeg odour is released.
These are just a few examples of the species we examined during the Botany Blast workshop, and the skills we acquired to identify trees and shrubs during the winter. Walking in the winter woods of New Brunswick is magical. Knowing the names of the trees and shrubs surrounding you makes the walk even better.
Botany was one of the few socially acceptable scientific activities for Victorian women. As noted in a previous blog article [Four Women Plant Collectors...] some women played a significant role in advancing the knowledge of native plants in 19th century Canada. They collected plants, learned their names and often pressed and mounted these botanical specimens for their personal herbarium. To help identify a plant and to communicate this knowledge to others, good detailed drawings of the specimen was a common pursuit. And thus botanical illustrations soon became a blend of science and art to show the unique features of a specific plant.
The botanical artists in 19th century Canada were primarily women and by the early 1800’s painting schools were established to teach women the artistic skills to render native plants as accurately as possible. These illustrations were often drawn from nature and the plants were identified by their scientific name. Some artists would compile their paintings into albums to be viewed and studied by family, friends and a broader non-scientific audience. These albums were very popular in Canada in the 1800’s and likely served as an early form of a plant identification guidebook of local flora.
In this article, I want to highlight three botanical artists from the Maritimes during the Victorian era.
Maria Morris Miller (1810-1875), was an exceptional artist among a group of Maritime ladies who made floral paintings and botanical illustrations of native plants in Nova Scotia. She was a botanical artist, a teacher and the first Nova Scotian woman to be recognized as a professional artist. Her illustrations received international praise at Exhibitions in London and Paris. Throughout her career she created over 90 illustrations of 146 species of flowers from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and eastern Canada.
Actoea Alba & Ruba, Red and White Baneberry. Watercolour by Maria Morris Miller, 1853. The Canadian Encyclopedia.
Pontederia cordata ‘Pickerel Weed’ and Sagittaria variabilis ‘Common Arrowhead’. Watercolour by Maria Morris Miller, 1853. The Canadian Encyclopedia.
“Renowned for their aesthetic quality as well as their botanical accuracy, her works are an important early contribution to the appreciation of the local natural world. By virtue of their subject matter and approach, her botanical illustrations created an avenue of artistic expression particularly accessible to other women artists of the era.” New Brunswick Museum
Maria Morris Miller compiled her botanical illustrations of native plants into albums for local patrons which ultimately led to her 1840 publication of “Wildflowers of Nova Scotia”. In 1866, she published The Wild Flowers of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and a year later, she re-issued her first collection as Wild Flowers of British North America. In these publications, scientific notes were provided by Professor George Lawson and Secretaries of Agriculture for Nova Scotia. Her collaboration with scientists supports the view that botanical illustrations are both art and science. Some of her works can be found in Library and Archives Canada (Peter Winkworth Collection of Canadiana) and in the New Brunswick Museum.
Maria Morris Miller taught drawing and painting to women not only in Nova Scotia but also in Saint John and Fredericton where she operated short-term schools during the 1830’s and from 1850 to 1875.
It is possible that one of her students was Mary Rebecca Wilkinson (1808-1874), a daughter of Loyalists and the wife of John Wilkinson, an architect and engineer in the NB Crown Land Office. She was a Fredericton artist who created a botanical album called “Wildflowers of New Brunswick”.
This album of 28 watercolours of native New Brunswick plants was commissioned in 1868 by the “Ladies of Fredericton” as a gift for Margaret Medley, wife of the bishop of Saint John, NB. The illustrations were inscribed with the scientific and common names for the plant. These beautiful paintings can be found in the UNB Archives & Special Collections.
Sagittaria variabilis var. latifolia. “Arrowhead”. Watercolour by Mary Rebecca Wilkinson, ca. 1868. UNB Archives & Special Collections.
Goodyera pubescens. Watercolour by Mary Rebecca Wilkinson, ca. 1868. UNB Archives & Special Collections.
Another prominent artist in Fredericton, Elizabeth Beckwith Hazen (1840-1935) made over two hundred drawings of native New Brunswick plants during the 1860’s and 1870’s. She was a skilled amateur artist, painting local native wildflowers in oil and watercolours. By the 1870’s she was showing her works in the Provincial Exhibition and receiving much praise.
With the help of Dr. Loring W. Bailey (UNB Professor) her botanical illustrations were inscribed with the full botanical name, the common name and the date.
‘Fireweed’, Epilobium angustifolium, from Nature. Watercolour by Elizabeth Beckwith Hazen, 1867. UNB Archives & Special Collections.
‘Swamp Calla’, Calla palustris. Watercolour by Elizabeth Beckwith Hazen, 1870. UNB Archives & Special Collections.
Elizabeth Beckwith Hazen’s legacy of over 120 paintings of New Brunswick native plants are held in the UNB Archives & Special Collections.
I want to thank Matty Watson in the UNB Archives & Special Collections for allowing me to view the original paintings of Rebecca Wilkinson (28) and Elizabeth Beckwith Hazen (125). To see these botanical illustrations in person, gives a better appreciation of the artwork and the efforts these women undertook to provide an accurate, scientific record of a plant’s structure, form and colour.
References:
Image of Cornus canadensis, ‘PigeonBerry’, by Maria Morris Miller. Retrieved from Dartmouth Heritage Museum, Halifax.
Huneault, Kristina. I’m Not Myself at All: Women, Art, and Subjectivity in Canada. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2018. McGill-Queen’s/Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation Studies in Art History.
Don’t you have to wait till spring when trees have leaves and flowers?
This Wednesday (18 Feb) at 11 am, come to Room 13 of the Bailey Hall (Biology Building) on UNB Fredericton campus and learn how twigs can often tell us what kind of tree they came from. There will be books to help put names to twigs, and botanists to help you make use of microscopes and some of the big words that often confuse enthusiasts. There will be numerous twigs to examine, and perhaps you have a tree at home that you would like to learn more about, if so, bring a twig. Pack a lunch and stick around to 3 pm.
‘Botany Blast’ Wednesday, February 18th – from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm in Room 13 – Bailey Hall, UNB Fredericton. Everyone is welcome and it is free. If you have any questions, please contact Robyn at the UNB Herbarium: plants@unb.ca
And just how many sedges are there – 25? Are sedges broken down into different genera? Is there one genus that is appreciably bigger? Hmm.
If these questions or similar ones keep you awake at night (and even if you don’t have such questions) come and find out the answers at this month’s ‘Botany Blast‘. This will be held Wednesday, Nov.19, 2025 from 11am to 3 pm in Room 27, Bailey Hall on UNB Fredericton campus. These plant ID sessions are held by the Connell Memorial Herbarium, which is the home to the largest vascular plant herbarium in New Brunswick.
Join us and learn that some sedges can be easily identified. It is easier than trying to learn confusing fall warblers or sandpipers…and they never fly away. There is no charge and you get to play with microscopes. Please contact Robyn Shortt at: plants@unb.ca, if you are interested in attending.
Answers:
Many sedges have triangular stems with sharp edges but some sedges have round stems. There are 171 different sedges contained in 15 different genera withing the sedge family called Cyperaceae.
The largest genus by far is Carex with 132 species. Because it is so big, (the largest genus in our flora), it is broken down into some 40 different sections. On November 19th we are going to talk about one of the sections within Carex called “Phacocystis” which contains many of our common wetland sedges. The word, Phacocystis is derived from the Ancient Greek words: Phako(s) meaning “lens-shaped” and Cystis, meaning “bladder” or “pouch”. This name likely refers to the distinct lens-shaped (biconvex) achenes (fruits) characteristic of species within this section of Carex.
Hope to see you Wednesday. Meanwhile, explore the online Specimen Search database to view the digital images of the Carex collection in the herbarium (up to Carex recta).
PlantID Workshop on Asters at Connell Memorial Herbarium
Room 27, Bailey Hall, UNB, Wednesday, Sept. 17th 2025, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Do you get confused with identifying the Asters of New Brunswick? You are welcome to participate in a special workshop with the amateur botanists at the Connell Memorial Herbarium at UNB biology building in Fredericton.Learn about the New York Aster, New England Aster, Lance-leaved Aster … and more, with a few goldenrods also thrown in.
Every month on the 3rd Wednesday, this group meets for a ‘Botany Blast’ as we continue to learn about the vegetation of our province.
Join us on Sept 17 from 11 am to 3 pm! Learn how to use a dissecting microscope, which are the best books and apps to use…and discover the fascinating uses of our province’s largest herbarium.
Contact Herbarium Manager, Robyn Shortt at: plants@unb.ca so we can make sure we have a place for you. No charge, and everyone is welcome whether beginner or expert.
Like visiting a church to witness the desiccated digit, hand or arm of a saint. What power lies in these brittle bodies folded away from the light, which they used to devour but which now would bleach their sessile corpses, hasten their conversion to dust?
The decades-old trilliums, petals no more than a gauze, can be scanned and their digital selves zapped off to any computer on earth, but their bodies, their molecules, remain tucked away in stacked file folders, waiting for us to stumble on a new question to ask them. They were pressed long before anyone dreamed of DNA testing, when their cells suddenly mattered again. No one knew back then what was coming next; they just kept at it, cataloguing like their lives depended on it.
If you ever doubted the worth of a body, this is the basement for you. Steadfast belief permeates the acid-free paper, the ink of the botanist’s stamp, the plants performing quiet deeds long after their deaths.
A recent visit to the Connell Memorial Herbarium inspired a UNB Professor of English to write this poem. Thank you Dr. Sinclair!
Dr. Sue Sinclair (she/her) Co-Director of Creative Writing Editor, The Fiddlehead Dept. of English, University of New Brunswick Wolastoqiyik Territory
A recently published book, “ Flora’s Fieldworkers: Women and Botany in Nineteenth-Century Canada” Ann Shteir (ed.), examines the role women played in plant collection, exploration and the general study of botany in British North America. Although the study of botany was an acceptable activity to women of the 19th century, it soon became a scientific discipline to be studied at universities and in formal scientific societies. Most archival records, plant lists and published studies were undertaken by men and there were few records of women’s accomplishments. This book brings to light through new archival materials, the important contributions some women made to botanical knowledge in pre-Confederation Canada.
In particular, personal letters show how four women in Canada were collecting plants for William Jackson Hooker, a professor of botany at the University of Glasgow. During the 1820’s and 1830’s they contributed to Hookers’ “Flora Boreali-Americana”, a project to document the plants of British North America, published in 1840.
The four women, all from the colonial elite in Quebec and Newfoundland, are Christian Ramsay (Lady Dalhousie), Anne Mary Perceval, Harriet Sheppard and Mary Brenton. William J. Hooker had commissioned botanical specimens from these women through his connections with the colonial network and personal contacts. He provided specific advice, copies of illustrated plant books and instructions on how to collect and preserve specimens for shipment to him in Glasgow. In his ‘Flora’ book, these women were cited nearly 450 times as sources of information about specific plants collected in Quebec and Newfoundland. Through their elite status in society, these women had the time, ability and ambition to learn about the plants. Here is a brief look at some of their botanical accomplishments.
Christian Ramsay (Lady Dalhousie) – 1786-1839 was the wife of Lord Dalhousie, and had the opportunity to travel throughout the British colony – Halifax, Quebec City and Montreal. She learned plants through books and from field experience working in her estate gardens. Lady Dalhousie was introduced to Hooker in 1825 and for the next three years was sending him plants from the Quebec region. She would collect with family and friends looking for new, rare or different plants than what was known in Britain. Her “approach to nature was empirical and material as she sought to identify, systematically arrange, and catalogue plants she collected”. (Shteir & Cayouette). Hooker cited her 48 times for plants she collected. Some of her specimens are held in the herbaria at Edinburgh and Kew, however, her personal collection of almost 300 specimens from Lower Canada are held in the Herbarium at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton, Ontario.
Figure 1. Ranunculus rhomboideus collected by Lady Dalhousie in Quebec, [?1824]. Courtesy of the herbarium of The Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh. E00757483.
Anne Mary Perceval (1790-1876), wife of a colonial administer in Quebec, shared the same botanical interests as Lady Dalhousie and they became friends. Perceval lived on a large estate in Quebec and had the interest, ambition and resources to observe plants. She studied Frederick Pursh’s Flora Americae Septentrionalis and taught botany to her children. Through her connections she corresponded with John Torrey, a botanist in New York, and they exchanged plants and knowledge of plants. It was Torrey who recommended her to Hooker as “a lady of fortune who is an excellent botanist”(Shteir & Cayouette) . By 1825, she and her network of botanical friends were shipping plants to Hooker. She is cited 150 times in Hooker’s ‘Flora’ for plants collected across the Quebec region. Many of her specimens are held in the Darlington Herbarium in West Chester, Pennsylvania.
Figure 2. Platanthera hookeri collected by Anne-Mary Perceval, William Darlington Herbarium – West Chester University, Pennsylvania (DWC), PH00525850.
Harriet Sheppard (1786-1858) was one of those botanical friends of Ramsay and Perceval who was also an avid collector of plants and natural history specimens. Along with her husband they were avid naturalists and members of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec. She was sending Hooker wildflowers, shrubs, orchids, grasses, ferns, marine plants and lichens. She is cited in 144 entries of plants in ‘Flora Boreale-Americana’. There is less archival material available because a fire in their estate destroyed her personal herbaria and plant lists. Some of her plant specimens are held in in the Herbarium at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
Figure 3. Pterospora andromeda, collected by Harriet Sheppard in Quebec, Herbarium, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, K006107257.
Mary Brenton (1791-1884) was from an elite family in Rhode Island that settled in Halifax. Her father was a lawyer and served as a judge and civil servant in Nova Scotia and eventually Newfoundland. Mary never married and always lived with her parents. Through elite social connections, she knew the Governor Thomas Cochrane, himself a botanical enthusiast, and it was he who introduced Mary to William J. Hooker. Mary became Hooker’s principal collector in Newfoundland and Labrador and from 1830 to 1838 she shipped plants to him. Her father was a travelling judge around the ports of Newfoundland and Mary could accompany him and collect plants from coastal bogs and fens. She is cited in the Flora 102 times for ferns, sedges, grasses. She found some plants that were new to Hooker and he named the gentian, Halenia brentoniana in her honour.
Figure 4. Mary Brenton’s specimen of Halenia brentoniana, Herbarium, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, K000854355.
These four women stood out as botanists collecting plants in Lower Canada and Newfoundland for William J. Hooker’s project, Flora Boreali-Americana. They also collected plants for their own herbaria as did other women featured in this book, such as Catherine Parr Trail, Alice Hollingworth and Isabella McIntosh. Botanical albums and botanical art is covered in one essay which enlightened me to two women botanical artists in New Brunswick in the 1870’s. (More on this in another article.) I recommend this book for anyone interested in women botanists in Canada. The bibliography is also extensive and led me to the article by Shteir and Cayouette and also down many different pathways.
References:
Shteir, Ann B. (ed.). Flora’s Fieldworkers: Women and Botany in Nineteenth-Century Canada. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022.
Shteir, Ann B., and Jacques Cayouette. “Collecting with ‘botanical friends’: Four Women in Colonial Quebec and Newfoundland” Scientia Canadensis 41, no.1 (2019): 1-30.
Connell Memorial Herbarium (UNB IH) 