A Botanical Tour of Nova Scotia
In the Book of Genesis, we learn that by the time God set Adam down in the Garden of Eden, He’d already stocked the place with an ample supply of trees, shrubs, weeds, and flowers. Adam was dumbstruck by this profusion of vegetation. So much greenery, so undistinguishable, so consternating. So, Adam approached God and asked, “what’s all this stuff?” God, a responsible parent, admonished Adam to name each plant himself so that he and his partner Eve could avoid blundering about in a place unaware of what was what.
So goes the Judeo-Christian account of the beginning of taxonomy.
Adam was apparently an adept namer of plants, but his behavior as a gardener wasn’t without mishaps, as we all know. The consequences of Adam’s most famous botanical error — his connubial experiment in forbidden fruit — were immediate. He and his spouse were expelled from the Garden and condemned to a life of hardship and pain. Those punishments have been passed on to all of his children like an inescapable genetic code, planted in our very bones. The Original Sin. But the names of the plants he so carefully curated? Not a single one of those managed to get passed down to us. We’ve got to learn them again from scratch. Seems unfair.
Because of this, Jessica and I have been wandering about Nova Scotia, our newly found Eden, innocent of any knowledge of its vegetation. We are slowly acquiring the names all over again. Luckily, the task has been made less difficult, thanks to iNaturalist and the bright people who’ve devised cellphone apps that can tell the difference between a thistle and a toadstool. So…, cellphones in hand, we’ve been bringing the mass of vegetable life in this Canadian province out of chaos and into the light of day.
We began our explorations in Grand Pré, site of another expulsion, the Great Expulsion of the Acadians, who eventually settled southern Louisiana, from whence we ourselves hail. And the first plant that caught our attention was a magnificent and aged Horse Chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum), standing outside the St. Charles des Mines Chapel and Memorial to Evangeline. I knew a bit about the importance of American Chestnuts (Castanea dentata) from my reading of American Canopy: Trees, Forests, and the Making of a Nation by Eric Rutkow. Rutkow writes movingly about the 1904 blight that decimated what was arguably the most commercially important native tree species on the continent. So, I was ready to appreciate the tree we were now admiring. But it turns out the Horse Chestnut is not a chestnut at all, and not even American. It was introduced into the country as an ornamental in the early 19th Century. William Bartram, one of my botanical heroes, was one of those who tried to establish the tree on American soil, and Frederick Law Olmstead, designer of Central Park in New York City (and many other urban parks), used the tree frequently in his urban landscaping. That explains why we were seeing it here, in this park dedicated to the memory of expelled Acadians. It’s a park tree. A tree for artificial spaces. And it’s not a true chestnut. Eating the nut of the Horse Chestnut tree can cause serious gastric distress. The chestnuts we roast over an open fire at Christmas time are all European, Chinese, or Japanese. But the American Chestnut? Gone Pecan.
Thus admonished, we were eager to move to more natural landscapes, so from our temporary housing at an inn in Wolfville, we headed up to Cape Split for a hike to a bluff overlooking Gentleman’s Cove and the Bay of Fundy. At the trailhead we saw these beautiful Blackberry (Rubus canadensis) blossoms, totally native.
These One-Flowered Wintergreens (Moneses moniflora) were also growing on the trail to Gentleman’s Cove. This plant has many common names, including Shy Maiden, Star of Bethlehem, St. Olaf's Candlestick, and Wood Nymph, but my favorite of these is Frog's Reading Lamp. Processed as a tea, it is used in some native American cultures to cure cancer, tuberculosis, flu, and smallpox, though one source claims that it has been used successfully to cure gambling addictions.
Bunchberries (Cornus canadensis) were also profuse on this trail and later proved abundant on every hike we took in the province. At times, they carpeted the hillsides and made a beautiful ground cover. The berries, when ripe, are edible, though not particularly tasty. It’s a shame because they can be found everywhere in the forests of Nova Scotia.
If you are a fan of ferns, as I am, Nova Scotia is the place for you. It is home to a wide variety of these plants, including Royal Ferns, Beech Ferns, Hay-Scented Ferns, Christmas Ferns, Oak Ferns, Bog Ferns, Curly Grass Ferns, and New York Ferns. These Cinnamon and Sensitive Ferns were among the many varieties we saw on the trail.
We also saw Soft Rush, a plant we often see in the Louisiana swamps. Southern Canada is about as far north as its range goes.
And Creeping Buttercup (Ranunculus repens)! Its leaves look like parsley, but they are toxic.
And a Striped Maple (Acer pensylvanicum), new to both of us. Its large three-toed leaves look very unmaplish, but I was pleased to learn that it is a sequential hermaphrodite, meaning it can switch its sex over the course of its lifetime. I’m not surprised that it will not grow in Louisiana.
It was a pleasure to see St. John’s Wort (Hypericum perforatum) on this hike. I am told that this plant, properly prepared, is a good treatment for mild depression. I’ve never tried it in its medicinal form, but looking at it cheers me up.
A final plant from the Cape Split hike is this Rugosa Rose (Rosa rugosa), which Jess is very fond of. They are showy, no doubt about it. They were everywhere in Nova Scotia and seemed to especially enjoy the coastal areas, basking on the rocky shores of the Bay of Fundy like entitled tourists, eager to show off their bling. In some areas, they are considered invasives, outcompeting local flora for habitat and no doubt boasting about it to their confreres.
After Grand Pré (we stayed at an inn in Wolfville), we headed southwest to Annapolis Royal, which is the home of an incredibly well curated botanical garden. I can’t begin to show the profusion of plants in that edenic space, but we did see some great native plants along the way, including some very nice Yarrow (Achillea millefolium). This plant has more uses than I can list here, but native American groups commonly used it to stop nose bleeds. Jess and I were getting along famously, so we saw no particularly reason to add this plant to our first aid kit. Nova Scotia also hosts Golden Yarrow (Achillea filipendulina), though we only saw it in gardens.
We left Annapolis Royal and headed to a whale watching adventure with a company based on Brier Island. Awakening the day of our appointed tour, we found the weather agreeably gray and foggy, and set out with a group of seven others aboard a Zodiac skippered by a weathered captain and guide who, for reasons best known to himself, kept his own counsel regarding whale lore. In anticipation of the trip, both Jess and I had popped a Gravol pill (Canada’s Dramamine), thinking that we’d stave off sea sickness. Our captain galloped the Zodiac about the Bay of Fundy for some three hours in a bootless search for whales, giving me a new reason to sympathize with the crew of the Pequod. Two hours into the pursuit of this elusive creature, Jess, seeking relief from the jarring ride, slid to the floor of the craft, where the Gravol quickly lulled her into a profound sleep. The whales never appeared, though in fairness we (well, not Jess) did see one Shearwater (sp Puffinus).
The crew:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/znhtBzbasX5mtgtdA
Here’s a pic of our obligatory survival suits and an artist’s rendering of the Zodiac track:
But no matter. We were much more interested in plants.
From Brier Island, we wound our way further south through the historic shipbuilding towns of Yarmouth, Pubnico, Clark’s Harbour, Barrington Passage, and Shelburne, then traveled down the edge of the Sable River toward the sea until we reached a turn-off to a six-mile gravel road that led to a remote cabin on a nearly uninhabited area of a peninsula and bay called Port L’Hebert. The cabin was perched directly on the edge of the North Atlantic, and we had the entire rocky shore for miles on either side of us to ourselves.
We hiked this area without seeing anyone for several days. But the plant people were everywhere. Even the granite cobble berms in front of the cabin had interesting plants, including Sea Pea (Lathyrus japonicus) and more Rugosa Roses (Rosa rugosa), which grew everywhere on the round cobbles. Since southeast Louisiana where we live has no rocks (being entirely deltaic, it sits on hundreds of feet of mud), we couldn’t get enough of these stones. They were as aesthetically pleasing to our eyes as all the flowers and plants that we saw in the province, so seeing them in conjunction with each other was a special treat.
When we weren’t looking for new plants, Jess invented a competitition that involved seeing who could balance the most sea rocks on their knees without dropping them. This turned out to be more difficult than it might seem, though Jess proved herself quite adept.
We had some invigorating hikes along the shoreline here, and in the course of looking for interesting plants, we happened upon what for me were two new snake species, the Ring-Necked Snake (Diadophis punctatus) and the Maritime Garter Snake (Thamnophis sirtalis pallidula). Both had been killed by cars on the gravel road leading down to Johnstons Pond. This is obviously unfortunate and all too common, but road mortality has allowed me to add a number of snake observations in Louisiana that I would never otherwise have had a chance to see, including the remarkably beautiful, but slanderously named Red-bellied Mudsnake (Farancia abacura). That I had never heard of or seen the Maritime Garter Snake was no surprise since their range is limited to the upper northeastern states and southeast Canada. According to the Museum of Natural History in Halifax, they are also the largest snake in Nova Scotia, occasionally growing to 36 inches. The Ring-Necked Snake has a much larger distribution and can even be seen by the observant herper in southern Louisiana.
In spite of their unfair treatment by the author of Genesis, all three of these are quite harmless and undeserving of their untimely fates.
I’ll spare my readers the photo I took of the sadly mangled Maritime Garter Snake, but here is a shot taken by a photographer who was fortunate to have a live one pose for him.
But we were really looking for plants. And happily, not far from our unfortunate reptiles, the roadside was lined with gorgeous Big-Leaved Lupines (Lupinus polyphyllus).
While hanging out at our Port L’Hebert cottage, we decided to drive over to an adjacent peninsula and hike the Kejimkujik National Park Seaside Trail, which is famous for its coastal plant life. Several plants there caught our attention. The first was Knotted Wrack (Ascophyllum nodosum). At least, I think it was Knotted Wrack. There are several varieties of wrack, and this one seemed the most likely. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any macro-shots. In any case, very attention grabbing, and with such an interesting common name. Wrack! The term was used originally (and still) for the wreckage of ships lost at sea and cast, in pieces, ashore. Sea wrack as a plant certainly has the appearance of something cast ashore. I found it beautiful, in a haunting kind of way. Those rocks you can see out in the ocean were chock-a-block with cormorants, guillemots, gulls, and harbor and gray seals, all making a cacophonous racket.
On this hike we also encountered Sheep Laurel (Kalmia angustifolia), whose folk-names testify to the plant's toxicity: lambkill, sheep kill, and calf-kill. It was delicate and friendly looking despite its names.
Not far from the sheep laurel, we ran into a small patch of carnivorous Purple Pitcher Plants (Sarracenia purpurea), known for their ability to capture and digest insects. The part of the plant that does the capturing and digesting is at the very base, which (once again) I failed to capture well in a photo. If you look very closely at the first photo, you can make out a few of the pitchers smothered beneath a profusion of huckleberry or bayberry bushes. The pitcher part of the plant is by far the most interesting feature visually as well as botanically. My bad for being distracted by the decadent appearance of the flower.
Also on this hike: Winterberry, Red Clover, Cat’s Ear, Cinnamon Fern, and Black Knapweed.
After our hike on the Kejimkujik Seaside Trail, we took some days to explore the coast again near our cabin, hiking up to Little Port L’Hebert itself and Johnstons Pond, which is a breeding site for the endangered Piping Plover (Charadrius melodus).
On another day, we drove to Lunenberg to look at its interesting domestic architecture, its typical Anglican church, and to eat mussels and lobster rolls in the much ballyhooed Salt Shaker Deli.
On our last day at Port L’Hebert, we headed to the Tom Tigney Trail, which follows an old railroad bed alongside the Sable River on its journey to the sea. This trail was different from other hikes we’d taken and gave us a chance to discover more plants, including a beautiful variety of sphagnum, Wulf’s Peatmoss (Sphagnum wulfanum). One would have to look hard to find another plant that so warmly invites a person to lie in its embrace.
Another plant whose existence was hitherto unknown to us is the Swamp Candle (Lysimachia terrestris). The trail was also lined with a profusion of Asters, in this case Oxeye Daisies (Leucanthemum vulgare), which in many places are classified as invasive weeds. Attractive all the same, like many invasives.
Our next sojourn was in another part of the Kejimkujik National Park, which is a 156 square mile amoeba-shaped wilderness area in the center of the lower lobe of the Nova Scotian peninsula. We got a cabin equipped with kayaks and canoes just outside the Park on the Mersey River. I can’t say enough good things about this retreat plant-wise. It was chock-a-block with interesting flora and fungi. We took a walk shortly after arriving and found this Hemlock Varnish Shelf mushroom (Ganoderma tsugae). All kinds of claims have been made for its therapeutic virtues, including its effectiveness as a treatment for cancer, but its aesthetic virtues are plain enough to see on their own. It does look varnished, doesn’t it? And it’s big enough to serve as a shelf for something. About 11 inches across.
On other trees near the Hemlock Varnish Shelf were some extraordinary Lungwort Lichens (Lobaria pulmonaria), which do have the appearance of lung lobes, and which in any case are nice examples of baroque ornamentation. Like all lichen, their healthy presence is usually an indicator of clean air.
We had enjoyed traveling through the parts of Nova Scotia that had been settled by the French Acadians, but our new cabin was in an area that was obviously settled by people from the Liverpool area of England. After we settled in, I set out to kayak the Mersey River and its tributary Liverpool River, inescapably humming a tune made famous by Gary and the Pacemakers, whose band members hailed from that location. Once a-river, I fell into a wonderful alleyway of Pickerelweed (Pontederia cordata).
On this outing, we also saw White Water Lilies (Nymphaea alba), than which nothing is more attractive, though I remain partial to the Pickerelweed.
One of my favorite sightings on this paddle were the pond grasses, and though I couldn’t get a positive ID on the ones I liked best, I thought the aesthetics were strikingly modernistic. According to iNaturalist, these are possibly Water Bullrush (Schoenoplectus subterminalis).
Jess joined me on a canoe paddle on these two Liverpudlian rivers, and while I swam in the limpid water at the end of the one of them, she quite happily communed with a local and very vocal Green Frog (Lithobates clamitans).
Before we left the Mersey River and Kejimkujik National Park, we saw more plants of interest. One was the Indian Pipe (Monotropa uniflora). This plant looks so much like a fungus, no one could be blamed for thinking them mushrooms. But in fact, they are a chlorophyll-lacking plant, giving them a pale ghostly appearance. Two of its other common names are Corpse Pipe and Ghost Pipe. So far from being fungi, they actually subsist parasitically by eating fungi.
We undertook a long refreshing hike along the Mersey River in Kejimkujik, where see saw expansive meadows of attractive grasses that I couldn’t identify and that the Park Ranger I spoke with didn’t know the names of either. I conjectured that Adam had grown tired of naming grasses. That was disappointing, but the hike itself left us gawking.
Such greenery and scenery! Trees wrapped in mosses, and lungwort growing on top of the moss itself! The river at our side throughout the hike, with Black Ducks (Anas rubripes) paddling along, billing the grasses on the banksides.
Leaving the Mersey River cabin, we headed to Truro, where we were intent on seeing the Truro River Tidal Bore. After a four-hour drive, we arrived a half hour ahead of the scheduled appearance of this natural phenomenon. We knew that the highest tidal changes on the planet occur on the Bay of Fundy, some reaching well over 50 feet. In Halls Harbour, we had already experienced one such place where that occurs. But anyone expecting the Truro Tidal Bore to push up from the Minas Basin and the Salmon River at that height would be disappointed. All the same, what actually happens is impressive enough, though it can’t be captured easily in a photograph or video. We sat at the Fundy Discovery Center to watch it happen. We had checked the tidal bore schedule beforehand, so we knew it was timed to show up at 5:59 pm. From our vantage point, we could see downriver to a bend about a quarter mile away, and sure enough, around 5:45, we could see the bore churning the river as it rounded the corner like the Wells Fargo Wagon heading into River City bearing news from afar. At 5:59 on the dot, it reached the point in the river below our Adirondack chairs. The wave head wasn’t all that impressive on the day we watched, probably less than a meter in height, but if you witness the event near the full moon, it can be higher, and on any day, the bore generates a wake that can be as much as nine feet in height.
After a day in Truro, we moved on to our penultimate stopping point on Cape Breton. This entailed another beautiful four-hour drive to our destination near Cheticamp, in the community of Petit Étang, very near the northern tip of the Cape Breton Highlands. I’ve written elsewhere about kayaking the Cheticamp River, but we also hiked in Cape Breton Highlands National Park, which extends from the river’s edge on the west side of the Cape, where we were housed, all the way to the eastern shore facing the North Atlantic Ocean. The gravel path from our cabin down to the Gulf of St. Lawrence was lined with flowers. Two of the most prominent were the Tansy Ragwort (Jacobaea vulgaris), which is a native, and the Black-Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta), which, though native to much of North America, was introduced into Nova Scotia.
One of the most common path-side plants here was White Sweet Clover (Melilotus albus).
And alongside the Sweet Clover, we often saw clouds of Queen Anne’s Lace (Daucus carota).
Our day on the Cheticamp River also gave us a chance to see the wonderfully named Spotted Joe Pye Weed (Eutrochium maculatum), whose purple flowerheads stood out against the water rushes like the purple-bewigged marchers in a Mardi Gras Parade.
Midweek, we decided to drive across the Cape to the Middle Head Trail near the town of Ingonish. That trail proved as replete plant-wise as any trail we had hiked in the province. We saw many of our old friends, including Dogwood Bunchberries, Black Knapweed, Oxeye Daisies, and Sensitive Ferns, but we also came across several newbies: Tufted Vetch (Vicia cracca), Fireweed (Chaemaenerion angustifolium), Lesser Stichwort (Stellaria graminea), and Red Elderberries (Sambucus racemosa).
We loved the abundance of Fireweed (Chaemaenerion angustifolium) on this trail; it thrives in disturbed areas, such as sites deforested by clear-cut timbering, bombings, road building, forest fires, etc.). These plants were common in Nova Scotia along the roadsides and trails.
Here’s a closer look at this attractive flower.
All along this ridgetop trail, we had the ocean in sight several hundred feet below us. It provided a breathtaking backdrop to the plants nearer at hand, including the New York Asters (Symphyotrichum novi-belgii) shown below these photos.
Back in Petit Étang, we had time for one more outing, and we decided to take the advice of a neighbor who recommended that we hike up to an abandoned gypsum quarry behind Cheticamp town. On this final hike we found Pearly Everlastings (Anaphalis margaritacea), Canada burnet (Sanguisorba canadensis), and Colt’s Foot (Tussilago farfara).
The day after we returned from the quarry we packed up to leave Petit Étang. On our way out of town, we passed by the massive sandstone Église Saint Pierre de Cheticamp, constructed at the end of the 19th Century with funds raised by the local French Acadian Catholic community. It was a gray day, threatening to rain. We left our rented car in the seaside parking lot and walked into the empty barrel-vaulted nave. We sat for a while, admiring the neoclassical architecture, corinthian columns, stained glass windows, and altar. It seemed a fitting place to make our farewell to Cape Breton. We were already regretting that we had to leave, and I had to repress the atavistic urge to compare our departure from the province to the expulsion of our Original Parents from the Original Garden. It’s the Myth of the Eternal Return. Hard to shake one’s early training. In any case, there are no cherubim with flaming swords standing at the Canadian border. We hope to return next year.
Great post, John! Your enthusiasm makes me want to pause and look more closely at our plant friends.
John, I hope this is the first installment in a series titled “A Naturalist Travels the World.” Your writing is both entertaining and educational. Your iNaturalist species total must be impressive in variety and geography.