December's flower, the Narcissus

 

December is represented by the Narcissus in The Language of Flowers. It reflects respect, modesty and faithfulness.


 







 If we go back further in time, to the origin of the name Narcissus,   we learn that the Greek myth claims Narcissus as the beautiful hunter who fell in love with his own image in a pool of water. Apparently he was attracted to the pool of water by Nemesis and was so enamoured by his reflection that he couldn't leave it and died there. Hence we have narcissicism, which according to wikipedia is a fixation with oneself.


The Christmas association with the poinsetta originated in Mexico in the 1500s, where this Euphorbia grows in the wild. The American horticultural industry's use of poinsetta is tied to the development of grafting techniques in the early 1900s.
For those wishing to grow the plants after the holiday season, "the poinsettia can be induced to reflower after the initial display when purchased. The red blooms should be pruned, and the plant moved outdoors after the last frost. It should be returned indoors in the Fall, before the first frost, to a room which is not lighted after sunset. The plant requires a period of uninterrupted long, dark nights for around two months in autumn in order to develop flowers. Incidental light at night during this time will hamper flower production. When watering it is important to allow the plant to drain out any excess water. Having a poinsettia sit in water can do harm to the plant as it prefers moist soil to direct water."

quotes from Wikipedia.

who am I?

I’m a botanist by profession and a natural history conservationist by birth.  My feet have taken me through almost 3000 kilometers of Nova Scotia’s back country. I’ve skirted the shores of more than150 lakes in the province, surrounded by a dazzling array of flora and fauna.

Even with my duties as Curator of Botany at the Nova Scotia Museum, I am still amazed at the huge number of plant species existing in this tiny province. Do you know we have 1640 different plant species in Nova Scotia?  I’m on a first-name basis with just about all of them, and I know where they live. That’s the botanist in me.

The conservationist in me says something else. People have a way of affecting plant species in a big way.  For example, about a third of all the plant species found in Nova Scotia were brought here by people from other places in the world over the centuries of settlement  A third of all of our plant species are rare or at risk because of the activities of people and development of the land. Nova Scotia is in danger of losing these plant species forever.

That’s why I do what I do.  To me, our natural history is one of the biggest reasons people have chosen our province as a place to bring their families for the last 500 years.  It’s a reason Nova Scotia was a home to ancestors of the Mi’kmaq almost 10,500 years before that.  We and the people before us were and are completely tied to Nova Scotia’s unusual climate and geography, a natural habitat the like of which exists nowhere else in Canada.

That’s why it is so important to understand more about ways to conserve the plants found here.

As Curator of Botany, my work involves documenting and caring for the Nova Scotia’s Museum collection of plant specimens.  For more than 150 years, the plant life of the province has been carefully recorded, studied, and preserved by curators at the museum so that researchers today and tomorrow can understand what existed in the past, what exists here now, and explore ways to preserve their existence for tomorrow.

The study of botany is....organic. It never ends, and lives and grows like the plant life I study.  The museum constantly adds new information to the precious provincial collection, and wherever possible supports researchers in their quest to know all there is to know about plant life in Nova Scotia.

The result is a plant archive gathered over a very long time. It is accessible to the researchers, scientists, educators, and others who use them for study and understanding toward conservation of all of the plant species found here.

To conserve Nova Scotia’s plant heritage, I work on many projects with other conservationists within government and from private sector. I’ve also helped develop strategies to protect particular species under threat. The Eastern Mountain-avens (Geum peckii) and the Thread-leaved Sundew (Drosera filiformis). are “Red-listed” vascular species found nowhere else in Canada, but southwestern Nova Scotia. Low population numbers and size, plus proposed industry have increased the risk of extinction to these species.

From 1988 until 1996 I reviewed and revised the1969 publication The Flora of Nova Scotia (Roland and Smith).  The resulting publication was titled Roland’s Flora of Nova Scotia, revised by Marian Zinck.   In 2006, I started production of an ebook on Nova Scotia plants, with my friends and mentors, Ruth Newell and Nick Hill. It is nearly 7 years later and we hope to publish in 2014.

To me, conservation of Nova Scotia’s precious plant population depends on having great information to work with, such as the documents and collection at the Nova Scotia Museum.  It depends on continuing to add to that important body of knowledge through ongoing collections and research. And it depends on professionals and non-professionals alike taking time to appreciate, study, and work together to find solutions that will protect Nova Scotia’s diverse plant species for future generations.

      

Chrysanthemums for November

The Chrysanthemum represents November with Love and Cheerfulness. Depending on its colour, it may have slightly different messages. Red Chrysanthemums signify ‘I love’,  Yellow Chrysanthemums represent Slighted Love and White Chrysanthemums refer to Truth.

representing Miss October, calendula's orange glow

October's lovely flower is the striking Calendula. This garden annual represents sorrow and sympathy in the language of flowers. Perhaps it is a requiem for summer lost?
Calendula belongs to the Aster Family, once called the Composite Family. This is in reference to the presence, not of petals but of two types of florets, straplike and discoid (composites). The centres are the disk flowers. Each "flower" is actually a flower-head made up of florets. Consider adding the outer straplike florets to a salad of arugula mix, johnny-jump-ups and nasturtiums. Not only beautiful but very tasty with a raspberry vinaigrette.
It has other uses as well. Tincture or salves are available as herbal preparations for skin afflictions, most notable contact dermatitis from poison-ivy contact.

How Chris died...a discussion of wild potato and field sweet pea

I am grateful for my friend Jamie who posted the following article: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/09/how-chris-mccandless-died.html

Years ago I remember reading of this young man and his quest to find a purer lifestyle. His death was disturbing in several ways. Many mourned the senseless loss; others sought to find answers. If you are a harvester of wild foods, you may want to read it. Even in Nova Scotia, there are many harmful plants and fungi that can cause death or painful disfigurement.

August brings Sincerity!

The birth flower for the month of August is the Gladiolus. Who doesn’t remember agricultural fairs where bouquets of colourful glads were compared and judged for ribbons and trophies. These stiffly upright summer annuals grow from corms planted in the previous fall. 

They are only half-hardy here. Gladiolus, the word is a diminutive of sword, from gladius. Some even call the flowers the sword lily. Rightfully they are closer aligned with irises, belonging to that family. Their centre of origin is sub-Saharan Africa and they are included in the Cape Province flora.

In the conservative Language of Flowers, the gladiolus symbolizes strength of character and means Sincerity. Both noble qualities befitting the noble summer bloom.

Kiwis in Nova Scotia

I have returned from a hiatus in blogging. With three distinctly different weblogs now, I am going to try to keep them all current.

Did you know that kiwi-fruit grow in Nova Scotia? I didn't. When a colleague sent me an image of an unknown vine, I had no idea of the identity of the plant. So I did the next best thing. I contacted a former classmate who manages Halifax Seed in Saint John, NB. She didn't recognize it either.
Back to Halifax Seed in Halifax where a staffer put the name, Arctic Kiwi or Actinidia kolomikta to it. Yesterday, while speaking with Niki Jabbour, the Weekend Gardener, she suggested that the plants need a male and a female vine (more precisely, pollen receptor and pollen donor plants) . Apparently the foliage of the male is quite colourful...splotched with white and purple.

Who knew? Here you see the small fruits developing. They are tasty to eat, resemble commercial kiwis and don't have to be peeled.