Does anyone know of good species (flower) book(s) for Ontario, Quebec, the Atlantic Provinces?
Looking for good species book
Pix or info??? The green Readers Digest was what I used for years and years. Have to wait till I'm home again for real name. Mainly line drawings. No species actually, mainly genus only, with a few species here and there.
I know, gave my DD one when she became a house owner. If she still has it, I'll get you info Tomorrow. Has zones - good to know if so and so is hardy whereever.
Inanda
A friend of mine is doing research for a wildflower I.D. book--it will be a pocket book reference for hikers, and she is relating the I.D. back to the basic species, so wants to make it Canada-wide. Since we're in touch only by radio-phone just now, all I know is that she asked for "species books". Will quiz her more thoroughly on our next call, next Sunday. She hadn't planned on working on it this spring but her internet satellite connection is kaput until she can fly in a technician when the ice goes out in June, so since she can't do any of her slide show tour or eco-tourism business, and has finished her final draft of her latest book, she decided to work on the wildflower one. She's hoping I'll find her some books for June. I'm really encouraging her in this latest project as I think the book will be very useful, and there's nothing like it out there now.
Meanwhile, I'm handling all her business for her so getting a bit overextended! But hey, what are friends for. She does all my wildflower I.D.--I bring back dozens of pics I can't identify, and pester her. She's a real whiz at it.
(But pretty lost with my garden flowers, tee hee!)
Rosemary,
Go digging around in the Dept. of Ag books - Queens Printer - might find something there. Somewhere I have a book on Manitoba weeds which are the wild flowers to me. No orchids or lilies in there though.
Inanda
Talked with my friend and she wants wildflower field guides; needs the colour photos. There are lots of books out there but I'm hoping for recommendations as to which are the best!
Thanks Inanda, I'll check out the Dept. of Ag.
Some older books:
Planting the Seeds
Canadian Flora
European gardeners were fascinated by the plants being discovered by early travellers to the New World. Native plants of North America were gathered first by the Jesuit missionaries who were encouraged to observe and collect them, and to test them in "holding gardens" until they could be sent back to France. Many of these plants ended up in the Jardin des plantes, also called the Jardin du Roi, for many years the most important garden in France. The result is that the botanical names for many North American wildflowers contain the words canadensis or canadense. Most of the early explorers took artists along on their travels. Artists such as George Back and Robert Hood made detailed botanical drawings of the plants they saw. Early in the 19th century, the passion for collecting was reaching its peak, and Europe was hungry for new plants and trees. Stories of the early North American naturalists who fed this passion are filled with physical discomfort and danger, competition and intrigue, and disappointing losses when plants and seeds were shipped across the ocean and either died or were lost on the voyage. There now exist many flora describing the plants of Canada, from H.J. Scoggan's four-volume The Flora of Canada, to individual titles for each of the provinces and territories, as well as more narrowly based studies of interesting localities.
The first book on the subject of plant life in Canada was written in Latin by a physician in Paris who had never even been to this country. Its illustrations are probably based on plants found in the famous Jardin des Plants.
Iac. Cornuti Doctoris medici parisiensis Canadensium .... Cornut, Jacques Philippe.
Iac. Cornuti Doctoris medici parisiensis Canadensium ... .
Paris: Venundantur apud Simonem Le Moyne, 1635.
Abbé Provancher was the earliest of the 19th-century naturalists in Quebec. His Flore canadienne is filled with clear, detailed, scientific descriptions of the plants of the region, illustrated with line drawings, many of which were borrowed openly from the American botanist Asa Gray.
Flore canadienne.... Provancher, Abbé Léon.
Flore canadienne... .
Quebec: Darveau, 1862.
Catharine Parr Traill was not a botanist in the formal sense, but she was a keen observer and studied the plants of the region of Ontario around Peterborough. Published in the later years of her life, this volume is based on Traill's many years of observation and study, but is written in the friendly and charming style that marks all of her work.
"On light loamy or sandy soil our gay Lupine may be seen gladdening the wastes and purpling the ground with its long spikes of azure blue, white and purple flowers of many shades."
Studies of Plant Life in Canada : Or, Gleanings from Forest, Lake or Plain. Traill, Catherine Parr.
Studies of Plant Life in Canada: or, Gleanings from Forest, Lake or Plain.
Ottawa: Woodburn, 1885, p. 68.
John Macoun, Dominion Naturalist at the turn of the century, was one of the country's foremost botanists. His strength was as a collector and he was said to have amassed more than 100 000 specimens which formed the basis of the Dominion Herbarium.
Waiser, W.A.
The Field Naturalist: John Macoun, the Geological Survey and Natural Science.
Toronto: Unive
At a time when relatively little was known about the plants of Quebec, frère Marie-Victorin, while convalescing from illnesses that were to plague him most of his life, began collecting and exchanging specimens, reading what material was available, and corresponding with other botanists in Europe and the United States. After years of work and nearly a hundred papers on the subject, his magnificent Flore laurentienne was published in 1935. He was a major intellectual figure in Quebec and played an influential role in the development of the scientific movement there.
Flore laurentienne. Marie-Victorin, frère.
Flore laurentienne.
Montréal: La Salle, 1935.
In the mid 1960s, F.H. Montgomery, head of botany at the Ontario Agricultural College, saw the need for an up-to-date national flora, something that would help travellers interested in plant life identify the plants they found across the country. He carefully organized 1500 plants, keying them to genera and species. Over 870 were illustrated with line drawings, making it a valuable tool for the amateur and professional alike.
F.H. Montgomery.
Plants from Sea to Sea.
Toronto: Ryerson, 1966.
These asters are a good example of the 98 line drawings of North American plants and trees included as an addendum to the 18th-century record of a journey to New France.
Histoire et description generale de la Nouvelle France: avec le Journal historic d'un voyage fait par ordre du Roi ... Tome II. Charlevois, Pierre-François de.
Histoire et description générale de la Nouvelle France: avec le Journal historic d'un voyage fait par ordre du Roi ... Tome II.
Paris: Rolin fils, 1744, opposite p. 42.
Planting the Seeds
Canadian Flora
Maria Morris worked with Nova Scotian botanist Titus Smith in the 1830s to produce botanical illustrations, such as this milkweed, of the wild flowers of the province.
Wild Flowers of Nova Scotia. Morris, Maria.
Wild Flowers of Nova Scotia.
Halifax: Belcher, 1840, plate VI.
Plants of Manitoba. Plants of Manitoba.
Belfast; New York: Marcus Ward, 1800s, No. 31.
An illustration by Catharine Parr Traill's niece, Agnes Fitzgibbon (later Chamberlin), from a book prepared by the two that has become a Canadian classic.
Canadian Wild Flowers. Traill, Catharine Parr and Agnes Fitzgibbon.
Canadian Wild Flowers.
Montreal: John Lovell, 1868.
Image of flower
An illustration of wild tobacco (Nicotiana rustica) by E.J. Revell for a more recently published title, in which the authors have paired 70 of the most common Canadian plants and trees with quotes from early travellers and settlers, revealing something of the story of the discovery of Canada's flora and the early reaction to it.
And Some Brought Flowers : Plants in a New World.
(© 6)
Downie, Mary Alice and Mary Hamilton.
"And Some Brought Flowers": Plants in a New World.
Toronto: University of Toronto, 1980, unpaginated.
Cut and pasted from: http://www.collectionscanada.ca/garden/h11-2002-e.html
Excellent and comprehensive info, as always, Pam - thank you for posting this. I had been looking for native plant resources for this part of the country as well. I like Budd's Flora for the prairies, but didn't know if anything even approaching that had been written down here. Thanks again.
Shannon
Glad you will find it usefull Shannon.......like you I know Budd's Flora very well (we have that set in reference :).