Before getting down to specific flowering plants that we can be noticing “Whilst Out Walking”, I thought it would be interesting to write something about very basic botanising. To be followed in future weeks with more details for various plant groups:
Plants have one supreme advantage over all the other lifeforms you may be interested in. On the whole they don’t move around, they stay still when you want to take a photograph and study them closely and you do not have to get up before dawn either, as you would have to if birds are your passion. You can go back another day when the light is better for photography and be confident they will still be there.
While compiling a list of plants that we have seen in our personal study area it became evident that there are a considerable number of non-native, albeit effectively naturalized, species living alongside the natives. We knew there were some, of course, but not quite how many. It seems most probable that this is the inevitable consequence of Montreal having been a major North American trading port for over four centuries with the daily arrival of ships from Europe that were almost certainly bringing seeds with them.
The distinction of Native and Non-native species is sometimes not well understood. Generally speaking, a species is considered to be non-native (also known as alien) if it did not occur here prior to the arrival of Europeans. Making a distinction between native and non-native species is important because many non-native species are invasive (when away from home) and may potentially alter the ecosystem in which they become established. For example - crowding out native plants by way of being more aggressive or because they have no predators in their new environment. If you want to see the harm done by non-native plants that are seriously invasive just take a look to your right as you driveAutoroute 20 heading west from Montreal. There are places where ditch is filled to overflowing, filled to the point of all other plant species being totally excluded by the tall, feathery-topped stems of … not Bullrushes or Cattails but alien, invasive Phragmytes australis plants. They have no pests or predators here and once they move into a wetland can simply take over to the exclusion of all else. Sadly they are rarely controlled by the authorities - which would be hard to do anyway.
“There are four different types of vegetation. First, the remnants of what we might consider as “pristine” nature—ancient woodland and other undisturbed sites. These sites are very valuable, being highly diverse and densely structured. Next, cultural landscapes—that is, where nature has been shaped and sculpted by farmers and foresters. Third, the trees and plants that have been added for ornamental reasons, an aesthetic element of urban planning. Then, finally, what Kowarik memorably classifies as “nature of the fourth kind”: the spontaneous ecosystems that have grown up on wasteland, unsupported. His point is that these new feral ecosystems, in their authenticity and self-direction, are a new form of wilderness worth preserving in their own right.”
(from “Islands of Abandonment: Nature Rebounding in the Post-Human Landscape” by Cal Flyn)
We don’t actually have much if any of the “pristine” habitat left hereabouts and, quite probably, neither do you unless you live way out in the wilderness. What there was before Montreal city started to grow has long been eradicated by successive generations of loggers, farmers and gardeners. Even the Arboretum is mostly a man-made environment that half a century ago was comprised of cleared and planted agricultural fields and is thus a “cultural landscape”. Around our settled communities we have plenty of the third category, “aesthetic urban and peri-urban planting” in our gardens and parks. Lastly, we can enjoy the presence of small pockets of “feral ecosystems” … and thank goodness we do as those areas are where many of the really interesting wild plants are hanging on against man’s best efforts to tame them.
How to find and enjoy wild plants
Plants stay put. Once you have found something interesting you can go back and look at it again and introduce your friends to it. Similarly, when you have checked a corner or a ditch and found little of interest you don’t need to bother going back again. There are three habitats to seek out unusual plants - firstly, open fields and forests such as our Arboretum (cultural landscape). Secondly in quiet and infrequently visited places such as roadside verges and drainage ditches, unmanaged edges of town parks and along river banks (feral ecosystems). Lastly, believe it or not in your own garden (aesthetic planting - consciously done or by default).
Generally speaking, the richest locations for wild plants are where they can grow more or less undisturbed by human activity. The best such places in my area, for example, are undoubtedly the Arboretum and the Cap-St-Jacques and Anse-à-l’Orme nature parks. Those are all sites where there is little or no grass mowing or clearing of undergrowth. They have well established trails and you can wander along at your leisure peering into odd corners.
Don’t forget your own garden. Hopefully you will already be welcoming native plants to corners of your garden even if you are not yet quite ready to go the whole no-mow hog and turn over your lawn to wild flowers. Whichever stage your gardening has reached though there are more than likely corners that you rarely touch where errant seeds and wandering runners may have set up home if you look. Remember that not everything is a “weed” and also that so-called weeds are often the most interesting plants.
If plants really interest you, get a good field guide to help you to identify them - or at least install one of the plant identification apps on your phone. It is interesting how accurate artificial intelligence has become in recent years. Apps such as the splendid iNaturalist are often right, and even when they don’t determine the species that interests you it very often puts you within reach of it, aided by your field guide. Just don’t always believe what they tell you - they are very good but not yet always perfect.
If you are photographing plants for later identification don’t just get a picture of only the flower, but also record the leaves and seed cases if you can, plus the habitat it is growing in.
With that, it’s time to wander through the many plants and groups of plants that can be seen in town and nearby.
There are huge numbers of groups of plants. For now we are concentrating on flowering plants. I have removed mosses for later consideration, likewise trees and shrubs. Lichens and fungi in particular are no longer considered by taxonomists to be plants as such but occupy their own, relatively new, taxonomic kingdoms. Which still leaves an awful lot of what all of us would instinctively call “plants” to look at in the following weeks. These weekly articles will just be a tour d’horizon at best but you will get a good idea of the diversity of flowering plants we can enjoy.
But first:
Basic Botanising - Habitats
Before looking in detail at the various families of plants in some detail note that the first thing is to be aware of the habitat around you. Species are adapted to particular environments, ponds, forests, fields, slopes, edge habitats and so on. No point seeking a marsh plant in a dry field.
Knowing where you are simplifies and narrows down the possibilities and marks the first step in identifying what you are looking at.
In the following weeks, plant families will be described in “taxonomic order” because that makes the most sense.
Taxonomic order represents our best understanding of the evolutionary relationships between families of plants (or birds or spiders etc) in what was once called the “tree of life”. The families listed first are those which split off earlier from the common ancestors of all plants. Taxonomic order used to be determined by similarities in physical features but modern genetics has made the science much clearer. Morphological features are still used, but the information from the genomes (DNA) of lifeforms has led to major updates in taxonomic order in the most recently published guides compared to ones from 20 or even 10 years ago.
Taxonomic sequence is fluid— taxonomists consider changes based on the latest science.
Extremely helpful to have such clear and accessible essays about the living things in our gardens provided in bite-size pieces. I have several books about indigenous species, and much more is available on the internet of course. But learning from a source that refers in real time to my immediate environment (Baie-D'Urfé) makes the information so much more relatable. Thanks Richard.
Thank you for your generous post! And the “Islands of Abandonment: Nature Rebounding in the Post-Human Landscape” by Cal Flyn reference. I have added it to my reading list. I have just started reading "The Light Eaters" by Zoe Schlanger about how plants communicate with each other. It opens in the Hoh Rainforest about 2 hours drive from me above the Pacific Ocean!