Newfoundland

[HClase]

We've just come back from the Wildflower Society of Newfoundland and Labrador's annual long (5 days this year) field trip.  This year it was the Burin Peninsula one of the mildest parts of the Island and adjacent to one of those geo-political oddities, the French Departement de St. Pierre et Miquelon, where they use the Euro and serve rather better food than you'll get in most of Newfoundland - St John's being the exception.  (Sadly we didn't go there this time).  There's a wide variety of habitats, one sheltered wooded valley with birches and hazels as well as the spruce and fir that predominate elsewhere, muddy estuaries, sandy shores (very few!), high alpine sites.  Bogs and fens everywhere!

I'll just show a few pictures of what Leila and I consider the best alpine site that we visited, a south facing headland called "Hare's Ears".  As usual here it has a strange mixture of plants, true alpines like Diapensa laponica and Salix uva-ursi, woodland plants, like Kalmia angustifolia and Maianthemum canadensis and even bog plants like Solidago uliginosa and Malaxis unifolia.   But whatever their heights in their normal habitats none of them are more than a few inches high in this exposed site

Here's a selection of my pictures:-

First an alpine association: Kalmia angustifolia (Sheep Laurel) in flower with it's crown of new leaves and Empetum eamisii & Salix uva-ursi leaves in foreground; the bright green leaves to the right are our commonest Blueberry Vaccinium angustifolium


Then some Diapensia, which was just at its peak here (it's quite common and in other sites flowers in June; followed by the Bog Goldenrod.
 

We saw orchids everywhere, but up here were a couple of unusual ones, both with green flowers, Platanthera aquilonis is usually about 3 times as tall as this one (maybe 10cm).  And the other, Malaxis unifolia was only 4-5 cm high, I've included a closeup of its inflorescence too.
   

Finally, not at Hare's Ears but off the Cook's Lookout trail (Yes, that Cook, he came here too!) and not an alpine, but a plant that always fascinates me when I can find it, is North America's smallest terrestrial fern, Schizeaea pusilla, the Curly Grass Fern.  Two shots: showing the upright fertile fronds with their little comb of sori on top that are about 3 cm high, and the curled non-fertile fronds that give it its name.  It's not uncommon, and we've always found it in association with the Black Huckleberry, so when we find that we start looking.
 

[Maggi Young]

I'll just show a few pictures of what Leila and I consider the best alpine site that we visited, a south facing headland called "Hare's Ears".

Wow! Great pictures of these plants....... seems the pair of you have very good taste in plant sites!!

 All super but that Diapensia is heavenly

[HClase]

Thanks Maggi,  Is there anyway to have the pictures amid the text rather than all at the end.  I had to add my explanations afterwards!

[Maggi Young]

Yes, Howard, I'll send you a note explaining how to do that.

[johnw]

Howard - Great to see the Schizaea pusilla and the other beauties. I've only seen Schizaea in NS once.  Unfortunately my trip to the Burrin was in the winter, a wild ride with every sort of weather imaginable along the way. One day I will try to get to St. Pierre et Miquelon if only for the baguettes, I think there's a direct flight from Halifax.

I too would like to know how to post pictures in the middle of text.

By the way, do the locals call it Aire's Hears?

johnw

[Maggi Young]

John, I'll email you the  way to post pictures in the text.... I cannot write it here or send in a pm because the system sees the coding as an error if no pictures are loaded! 

[HClase]

Thanks for the email Maggi, as you see I've edited my post.  

You could say, I think, that you have to insert {attachthumb=1} etc. in the place where you want the thumbnail to appear, but using square brackets instead of curly ones.

John, next time you are here in summer and have a couple of hours to spare I'll take you to a site about 20 km down the TCH.

[Maggi Young]

Thank you Howard.... yes, that is a good explantion , to substitute the square brackets.  


Of course, Folks, clicking on the thumbnail pictures in the text will enlarge them in the same way as clicking on those added at the end of any post.

[johnw]

John, next time you are here in summer and have a couple of hours to spare I'll take you to a site about 20 km down the TCH.

Great Howard!  Would that take us to the Awk Ills?  Be interesting to walk the area with you.

johnw

[HClase]

On the way to the Awk Ills (Hawke Hills - for those unfamiliar with the dialect) John, Little Soldiers Pond area. There's seven species of Club-mosses on them Ills as well as Diapensia and Loiseluria (Now Kalmia procumbens)

I guess we should be careful about these private messages or Maggi will ban us.  Maybe I should say that the offer stands for anyone reading this site.

[Maggi Young]

Never mind the messages... is it true that Loiseleuria is now Kalmia procumbens?

I have the most awful trouble keeping up with these nomenclature changes. 

[cohan]

great shots and plants! hopefully you will be able to show us more of newfoundland's flora, seems like there is a lot of cool stuff there...
anyplace where plants are small is cool to me views of the area are welcome too..

[HClase]

Yes Cohan, cool's the word, anything above 22C we consider to be swelteringly hot.

As for the Loiseluria Maggi it is Kalmia on this side of the Atlantic as that's what it's called in the new "Flora of North America project.  See:

http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=1&taxon_id=116931

[Maggi Young]

Thanks, Howard, very interesting to see that.


By the way,
We're having trouble getting our summer temps. above 18 degrees......

[cohan]

Yes Cohen, cool's the word, anything above 22C we consider to be swelteringly hot.

As for the Loiseluria Maggi it is Kalmia on this side of the Atlantic as that's what it's called in the new "Flora of North America project.  See:

http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=1&taxon_id=116931

lol--well, here along the foothills, we aren't a whole lot warmer--we can get to the low 30's, though not for long or often (i 'joke' that on 'hot' days, it only reaches maximum temperatures for an hour or two in mid afternoon) and this year has hardly seen it..we've had (often low) single digit temperatures more often than not over the summer.. and many folks here also start complaining about 'heat' above 20C..lol