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In all the wonder of Gatineau Park, it always struck Gwynneth Evans and Tom Delsey as odd that there was so little information for visitors about what flowers grow beside the trails.
The two friends from Ottawa, both retired from Library and Archives Canada, have spent many years walking and cross-country skiing in the park.
Now, they are nearing the end of a personal project that echoes the private work of many Canadians in past generations: They have made an extensive database of what grows where, with photos, so that visitors will know what flora they are gazing at as they hike, ski or just meander through the park.
Evans and Delsey have trudged along the same paths over and over to find the flowers of the changing seasons, recording everything from rare orchids to common daisies.
“We usually go once a week from mid-April through to the very end of November, and we usually spend 2 1/2 to three hours each time,” Delsey said. “Because we’re not charging through there, we do maybe 12, 15 kilometres each time. We really love the park.”
Because there are so many plants, they have restricting themselves to wildflowers — no trees, shrubs, grass or mosses.
“We adore the Gatineau, and we hike in the Gatineau a great deal,” Evans said.
Gallery: Flowers from Gatineau Park
“There is much more diversity right at the local level than we ever really acknowledge. … When I look at the diversity within a metre of the ground in the Gatineau — the different kinds of plants that are growing together and surviving — crowding one another out, it’s just an amazing lens on the complexity and refinement of life. It is so varied and so beautifully made and worked out.
“It’s just an amazing lens on the complexity and refinement of life”
“It’s almost a mystery that every plant is unique and there is so much life in just a very small patch. The Gatineau itself has so many different microclimates and trees and shrubs and rock formations and so on.”
But she also says there’s more to it than a love of growing things.
“Canada in the ’30s began a number of very strong national institutions even though it was the Depression,” she said. There was the National Film Board; the National Research Council got its home at 100 Sussex Dr., and the government bought the land for what later became Gatineau Park.
“We saw that nation-building involved public good, and without public good we would not be a society that would be able to thrive in a positive sense.”
“We saw that nation-building involved public good, and without public good we would not be a society that would be able to thrive in a positive sense.”
“So the fact that people had vision and were not just caught up in the pain and suffering of the day and the week has always impressed me. And we do it in our Canadian way. We don’t do it with a lot of flourishes.
“That, for me, is a thread that goes through the history of Canada, and we don’t talk about it so much now …”
“We can continue the work in different stages of our lives and in different ways.”
Neither of the two observers is a trained botanist, though they do have backup help — a former Yale University botany professor who is a personal friend.
“It is the combination of the love of being outside in that wonderful park and the desire to learn and to appreciate and then share the bounty we have right at our doorsteps in Ottawa,” Evans said.
Delsey and Evans are following in the tradition of generations of early European settlers in Canada who got to work sketching and describing all the unfamiliar plants of their new country. Most, such as Catherine Parr Traill of Peterborough County or Abbé Ferland of La Tabatière, Que., were self-taught; yet their close examination of their surroundings had valuable detail that was widely shared by scholars.
The list reminds us that for centuries, people have known all these plants and given them common names that relate to their appearance, smell and even taste. The odd names lead us on a tour through the popular culture of a society that was once closer to nature: Nodding beggar-ticks, common eyebright, boneset, virgin’s bower, white turtlehead, squirrel corn, spotted jewelweed, cardinal flower, marsh skullcap, Indian cucumber root, kidney-leafed violet, perfoliate bellwort.
“It’s very hard to find anything (published work) that the professionals have been doing that focuses on this area,” Delsey said.
“As amateurs, we’ve been hiking in the park for years and we would always just observe the wild flowers. Gwynneth has a precious little wildflower book that dates back to the early 1900s with hand-drawn things.
“And then we got more serious about it.”
They took photos and could identify many of them, but not all.
“I would come home and check databases and try to determine exactly what we were dealing with,” because closely related flowers can be easy to confuse.
“We got up to just over 200 species. We were aiming for 150 for Canada 150, but in the spring we were well beyond that.”
It all went into an Excel table showing which plant lives on which trail. “We thought this might be useful for other people like ourselves, amateurs who are interested in what they are looking at.”
The pair consciously has not gone off the trails; these are all plants you can see as you walk.
“I spend a lot of time on my knees and sometimes my belly, trying to get an angle of it.”
They contacted Friends of Gatineau Park and are in discussions to hand over the photos and the database. Nothing is ever simple; public sector rules have to be followed, even for a list of where to see flowers.
Delsey is hoping that eventually someone connected with Gatineau Park will set it all up on a website for public viewing.
The park is split into three main sections:
There’s the cliff edge of the Eardley Escarpment, overlooking the valley. The area near the cliff top and along Ridge Road is another ecosystem, the Eardley Plateau. Then there’s the larger section with the lakes — Meech, Philippe and LaPêche, interspersed with hills and marshes.
“It’s amazing, some of the stuff you see,” he said, including tiny specialized plants the cling to crevices in the rock face.
Delsey’s old school friend taught botany at Yale “and often, when I am puzzled by something, I just send him the photo. He has said he is amazed by the variety, the diversity, given that we put those constraints on ourselves of staying within the boundaries of the park.”
“The deeper you get into it, the more you get amazed by the structure of these things.”
Notable flowers
• The small purple-fringed orchid is a frilly little showpiece with many flowerettes bunched together and looking like a cluster of pale purple butterflies. “It was all by itself in a kind of ditch on a fairly major trail called No. 3,” Delsey said. “But it was a trail that they were doing some rehabilitation on and this was just at the side, off the main part of the trail. … There was just one. That was, I think, three years ago now. We’ve gone back every year; we have never seen it again.”
• The park is a good spot to see pink lady’s slippers. These are big, strong orchids with an odd bulbous flower. “Sometimes you can stumble on maybe 30 of them within 10 yards of each other.”
• “Everybody know the ordinary trillium, the white trillium. There’s also a red trillium. … But then there’s also something called a painted trillium. Right in the centre of each of the three petals there are little lines, pinkish,” that look as though someone painted them on. They are much rarer. You’ll see them occasionally. . . . And there is another trillium that we’ve never been able to find, a yellow one.”
• Another member of the orchid family (the world has some 25,000 orchids) is called ladies’ tresses. Delsey has found some of them near the edge of Black Lake.
• He has found a water-loving relative of St. John’s wort, with a tiny pink bud. He has found it with the bud, but never an open flower.
• Delsey is still hoping to find another rarity, an odd version of a common spring flower called the trout lily. The regular trout lily is a cheerful, simple yellow flower that is easy to find in early spring, when trees do not yet have leaves and the forest floor is flooded with sunshine.
“Those spring ephemerals (early spring flowers) are my favourite, and they also tend to be the most native,” he said. Many flowers commonly found in Ontario today are imports either from other countries or other regions.
tspears@postmedia.com
Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans have documented more than 200 wildflowers in the Gatineau Park.
查看原文...
The two friends from Ottawa, both retired from Library and Archives Canada, have spent many years walking and cross-country skiing in the park.
Now, they are nearing the end of a personal project that echoes the private work of many Canadians in past generations: They have made an extensive database of what grows where, with photos, so that visitors will know what flora they are gazing at as they hike, ski or just meander through the park.
Evans and Delsey have trudged along the same paths over and over to find the flowers of the changing seasons, recording everything from rare orchids to common daisies.
“We usually go once a week from mid-April through to the very end of November, and we usually spend 2 1/2 to three hours each time,” Delsey said. “Because we’re not charging through there, we do maybe 12, 15 kilometres each time. We really love the park.”
Because there are so many plants, they have restricting themselves to wildflowers — no trees, shrubs, grass or mosses.
“We adore the Gatineau, and we hike in the Gatineau a great deal,” Evans said.
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Gallery: Flowers from Gatineau Park
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Gallery: Flowers from Gatineau Park
Photographed on the Pine Road trail, July 8, 2015. Family: Apocynaceae (dogbane family) Habitat: Dry open areas Flowering June to August Related species: Apocynum cannabinum (hemp dogbane) Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed on the O'Brien trail, April 25, 2016. Family: Berberodaceae (barberry family) Habitat: Rich forests Flowering April to May. Blooms before leaves unfurl. Related species: Caulophyllum thalictroides (blue cohosh) Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed on the O'Brien trail, April 21, 2016. Family: Ranunculaceae (buttercup family) Habitat: Dry to moist rich forests Flowering April to May. One of the earliest plants to flower in the spring. Stalks of flowers and leaves emerge directly from rhizome. Flowers may be blue, purple, pink, or white. Leaves appear after the flowers. Related species: Anemone americana (round-lobed hepatica) Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed on the Meech trail, May 5, 2016. Family: Saxifragaceae (saxifrage family) Habitat: Rock ledges Flowering April to June Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed on the Meech trail, May 5, 2016. Family: Liliaceae (lily family) Habitat: Moist to dry forests Flowering April to May. Produces a leaf after three years; seven to ten years can elapse before the plant produces its first bloom. Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed on the O'Brien trail, May 6, 2015. Family: Melanthiaceae (bunchflower family) Habitat: Moist rich forests Flowering April to June. Pollinated by carrion flies, attracted by the foul odour of the flower. Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed on the O'Brien trail, April 29, 2015. Family: Papaveraceae (poppy family) Habitat: Rich forests Flowering April to May. Name derived from red sap in the rhizome and stem. Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed on the O'Brien trail, May 6, 2015. Family: Melanthiaceae (bunchflower family) Habitat: Moist rich forests Flowering April to June. Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed on the O'Brien trail, May 6, 2015. Family: [Portulacaceae] Montiaceae ([purslane] montia family) Habitat: Rich forests Flowering April to May Related species: Claytonia virginica (Virginia spring beauty) Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed on the O'Brien trail, May 11, 2016. Family: Violaceae (violet family) Habitat: Moist forests Flowering in May Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed on the Étienne Brûlé trail, June 10, 2016. Family: Liliaceae (lily family) Habitat: Open woods and forests Flowering May to July. Common name derives from the mild cucumber-like flavour of the edible rhizome Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed on the Meech trail, May 21, 2015. Family: Ranunculaceae (buttercup family) Habitat: Moist forests, loamy soils Flowering May to June. Petals and sepals fall off as flower opens, leaving numerous prominent white stamens. "Doll's-eye" berries are poisonous to humans. Related species: Actea rubra (red baneberry) Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed on the Meech trail, May 21, 2015. Family: Papaveraceae (poppy family) Habitat: Rich forests Flowering April to June. Rounded spurs of petals parallel with each other. Related species: Dicentra cucullaria (dutchman's breeches). Pointed spurs of petals divergent. Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed on the Pine Road trail, May 25, 2016. Family: Colchiaceae (colchicum family) Habitat: Rich forests Flowering May to June. Stem appears to pierce through leaf blade. Related species: Uvularia grandiflora (large-flowered bellwort) Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed on the Blanchet trail, May 28, 2015. Family: Orchidaceae (orchid family) Habitat: Wet forests Flowering May to July. Bumblebee enters through slit in the labellum, passing under the stigma where any pollen on the bee is removed; as the bee passes under one of the anthers it picks up pollen and then exits through a small opening in the back of the flower. Related species: Cypripedium reginae (showy lady's slipper). Found in fens and swamps. Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
xPhotographed on the Blanchet trail, at the Tawadina Lookout, May 28, 2015. Family: Papaveraceae (poppy family) Habitat: Granitic rock ledges Flowering May to September. To enter the flower the bee presses on the hood formed by the lateral petals, exposing the anthers and stigma. Related species: Capnoides aurea (golden corydalis) Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed on the Étienne Brûlé trail, June 10, 2016. Family: Ranunculaceae (buttercup family) Habitat: Rocky open woodlands, wooded slopes Flowering May to July. Nectar stored in spurs of the flower, attracting hummingbirds and butterflies. Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed on the Kingsmere trail, June 17, 2015. Family: Iridaceae (iris family) Habitat: Wetland margins, banks of streams Flowering June to July. Since 1999 the harlequin blue flag has been the provincial flower of Quebec. Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed on the Champlain trail, June 28, 2015. Family: Ranunculaceae (buttercup family) Habitat: Moist forests and open wetlands Flowering May to July Related species: Anemone quinquefolia (wood anemone), smaller with a single basal leaf with three to five leaflets. Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed on the Pine Road trail, July 29, 2016. Family: Asteraceae (aster family) Habitat: Forest edges Flowering July to September. Listed as a vulnerable species in Quebec. Host plant for aphids and other plant bugs. Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed on the Wakefield trail, August 12, 2015. Family: Balsaminaceae (touch-me-not or jewelweed family) Habitat: Marshes Flowering June to September. Fruit explodes at the slightest touch, giving the plant its other common name, Touch-me-not. Related species: Pale Jewelweed (impatiens palllida) Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed on the Wakefield trail, July 11, 2016. Family: Myrsinaceae (marlberry family) Habitat: Wetland margins Flowering June to August. Each petal has two red dots at its base, forming a circle of ten dots in the centre of the flower. Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed on the Wakefield trail, July 11, 2016. Family: Lamiaceae (mint family) Habitat: Wetland margins Flowering June to August Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed on the Pine Road trail, July 29, 2016. Family: Roseaceae (rose family) Habitat: Wetland margins Flowering July to August Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed on the Étienne Brûlé trail, July 15, 2015. Family: Orchidaceae (orchid family) Habitat: Wetland margins Flowering June to August. Greek word "psycodes" means "butterfly-like". Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed at Lac Renaud, August 4, 2016. Family: Campanulaceae (bellflower family) Habitat: Stream banks Flowering July to September. Hummingbirds reach with their beaks down the long narrow corolla tube for nectar, pollinating the plant. Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed at Lac Renaud, August 4, 2016. Family: Campanulaceae (bellflower family) Habitat: Stream banks Flowering July to September. Hummingbirds reach with their beaks down the long narrow corolla tube for nectar, pollinating the plant. Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed at Lac Fortune, August 17, 2016. Family: Asteraceae (aster family) Habitat: Shorelines Flowering July to October. Flower head composed of disk florets; stem appears to pierce the joined leaves. Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed at Lac Renaud, August 4, 2016. Family: Verbenaceae (vervain family) Habitat: Stream banks Flowering June to October. Iroquois used a cold infusion of mashed leaves as a potion to make obnoxious persons go away. Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed on the Wakefield trail, August 12, 2015. Family: Plantaginaceae (plantain family) Habitat: Marshes Flowering July to September Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed on the Wakefield trail, August 12, 2015. Family: Ranunculaceae (buttercup family) Habitat: Moist thickets, marshes Flowering July to September. Also known as "devil's hair" (a common name also associated with the dodder, a parasitic genus in the bindweed family). Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed at Black Lake, September 2, 2016. Family: Orchidaceae (orchid family) Habitat: Shorelines Flowering August to September Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed at Black Lake, September 9, 2016. Family: Orobanchaceae (broom-rape family) Habitat: Shorelines Flowering August to September. Semi-parasitic, relying on root structures of surrounding plants for propagation and partial nutrition. Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed on the Étienne Brûlé trail, September 10, 2015. Family: Asteraceae (aster family) Habitat: Marshes and shorelines Flowering August to October. Waits for the last days of the warm season to bloom. Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed at Black Lake, September 9, 2016. Family: Hypericaceae (St.-John's-wort family) Habitat: Shorelines Flowering July to August. Flower rarely seen open. Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Mary Lacroix (L) does her physiotherapy exercise with physiotherapist Shiva Izady at the new Bruyère geriatric day hospital in Ottawa, January 24, 2018. Photo by Jean Levac/Ottawa Citizen Assignment number 128422 Jean Levac/OTTwp
Photographed on the Meech trail, May 5, 2016. Family: Saxifragaceae (saxifrage family) Habitat: Rock ledges Flowering April to June Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed on the Wakefield trail, July 11, 2016. Family: Ericaceae (heath family) Habitat: Forests Flowering July to August. Curved style extends beyond the petals of the flower, giving the appearance of a small bell clapper. Plants have a symbiotic relationship with the fungi that infect their roots. Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed on the O'Brien trail, May 6, 2015. Family: Melanthiaceae (bunchflower family) Habitat: Moist rich forests Flowering April to June. Pollinated by carrion flies, attracted by the foul odour of the flower. Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed on the Meech trail, May 5, 2016. Family: Liliaceae (lily family) Habitat: Moist to dry forests Flowering April to May. Produces a leaf after three years; seven to ten years can elapse before the plant produces its first bloom. Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed on the Meech trail, May 5, 2016. Family: Saxifragaceae (saxifrage family) Habitat: Rock ledges Flowering April to June Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed on the O'Brien trail, April 21, 2016. Family: Ranunculaceae (buttercup family) Habitat: Dry to moist rich forests Flowering April to May. One of the earliest plants to flower in the spring. Stalks of flowers and leaves emerge directly from rhizome. Flowers may be blue, purple, pink, or white. Leaves appear after the flowers. Related species: Anemone americana (round-lobed hepatica) Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed on the O'Brien trail, April 25, 2016. Family: Berberodaceae (barberry family) Habitat: Rich forests Flowering April to May. Blooms before leaves unfurl. Related species: Caulophyllum thalictroides (blue cohosh) Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed on the Pine Road trail, July 8, 2015. Family: Apocynaceae (dogbane family) Habitat: Dry open areas Flowering June to August Related species: Apocynum cannabinum (hemp dogbane) Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
Photographed on the Wakefield trail, July 11, 2016. Family: Ericaceae (heath family) Habitat: Forests Flowering July to August. Curved style extends beyond the petals of the flower, giving the appearance of a small bell clapper. Plants have a symbiotic relationship with the fungi that infect their roots. Gatineau Park Wildflowers Photos by Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans /OTTwp
“There is much more diversity right at the local level than we ever really acknowledge. … When I look at the diversity within a metre of the ground in the Gatineau — the different kinds of plants that are growing together and surviving — crowding one another out, it’s just an amazing lens on the complexity and refinement of life. It is so varied and so beautifully made and worked out.
“It’s just an amazing lens on the complexity and refinement of life”
“It’s almost a mystery that every plant is unique and there is so much life in just a very small patch. The Gatineau itself has so many different microclimates and trees and shrubs and rock formations and so on.”
But she also says there’s more to it than a love of growing things.
“Canada in the ’30s began a number of very strong national institutions even though it was the Depression,” she said. There was the National Film Board; the National Research Council got its home at 100 Sussex Dr., and the government bought the land for what later became Gatineau Park.
“We saw that nation-building involved public good, and without public good we would not be a society that would be able to thrive in a positive sense.”
“We saw that nation-building involved public good, and without public good we would not be a society that would be able to thrive in a positive sense.”
“So the fact that people had vision and were not just caught up in the pain and suffering of the day and the week has always impressed me. And we do it in our Canadian way. We don’t do it with a lot of flourishes.
“That, for me, is a thread that goes through the history of Canada, and we don’t talk about it so much now …”
“We can continue the work in different stages of our lives and in different ways.”
Neither of the two observers is a trained botanist, though they do have backup help — a former Yale University botany professor who is a personal friend.
“It is the combination of the love of being outside in that wonderful park and the desire to learn and to appreciate and then share the bounty we have right at our doorsteps in Ottawa,” Evans said.
•
Delsey and Evans are following in the tradition of generations of early European settlers in Canada who got to work sketching and describing all the unfamiliar plants of their new country. Most, such as Catherine Parr Traill of Peterborough County or Abbé Ferland of La Tabatière, Que., were self-taught; yet their close examination of their surroundings had valuable detail that was widely shared by scholars.
The list reminds us that for centuries, people have known all these plants and given them common names that relate to their appearance, smell and even taste. The odd names lead us on a tour through the popular culture of a society that was once closer to nature: Nodding beggar-ticks, common eyebright, boneset, virgin’s bower, white turtlehead, squirrel corn, spotted jewelweed, cardinal flower, marsh skullcap, Indian cucumber root, kidney-leafed violet, perfoliate bellwort.
“It’s very hard to find anything (published work) that the professionals have been doing that focuses on this area,” Delsey said.
“As amateurs, we’ve been hiking in the park for years and we would always just observe the wild flowers. Gwynneth has a precious little wildflower book that dates back to the early 1900s with hand-drawn things.
“And then we got more serious about it.”
They took photos and could identify many of them, but not all.
“I would come home and check databases and try to determine exactly what we were dealing with,” because closely related flowers can be easy to confuse.
“We got up to just over 200 species. We were aiming for 150 for Canada 150, but in the spring we were well beyond that.”
It all went into an Excel table showing which plant lives on which trail. “We thought this might be useful for other people like ourselves, amateurs who are interested in what they are looking at.”
The pair consciously has not gone off the trails; these are all plants you can see as you walk.
“I spend a lot of time on my knees and sometimes my belly, trying to get an angle of it.”
They contacted Friends of Gatineau Park and are in discussions to hand over the photos and the database. Nothing is ever simple; public sector rules have to be followed, even for a list of where to see flowers.
Delsey is hoping that eventually someone connected with Gatineau Park will set it all up on a website for public viewing.
The park is split into three main sections:
There’s the cliff edge of the Eardley Escarpment, overlooking the valley. The area near the cliff top and along Ridge Road is another ecosystem, the Eardley Plateau. Then there’s the larger section with the lakes — Meech, Philippe and LaPêche, interspersed with hills and marshes.
“It’s amazing, some of the stuff you see,” he said, including tiny specialized plants the cling to crevices in the rock face.
Delsey’s old school friend taught botany at Yale “and often, when I am puzzled by something, I just send him the photo. He has said he is amazed by the variety, the diversity, given that we put those constraints on ourselves of staying within the boundaries of the park.”
“The deeper you get into it, the more you get amazed by the structure of these things.”
Notable flowers
• The small purple-fringed orchid is a frilly little showpiece with many flowerettes bunched together and looking like a cluster of pale purple butterflies. “It was all by itself in a kind of ditch on a fairly major trail called No. 3,” Delsey said. “But it was a trail that they were doing some rehabilitation on and this was just at the side, off the main part of the trail. … There was just one. That was, I think, three years ago now. We’ve gone back every year; we have never seen it again.”
• The park is a good spot to see pink lady’s slippers. These are big, strong orchids with an odd bulbous flower. “Sometimes you can stumble on maybe 30 of them within 10 yards of each other.”
• “Everybody know the ordinary trillium, the white trillium. There’s also a red trillium. … But then there’s also something called a painted trillium. Right in the centre of each of the three petals there are little lines, pinkish,” that look as though someone painted them on. They are much rarer. You’ll see them occasionally. . . . And there is another trillium that we’ve never been able to find, a yellow one.”
• Another member of the orchid family (the world has some 25,000 orchids) is called ladies’ tresses. Delsey has found some of them near the edge of Black Lake.
• He has found a water-loving relative of St. John’s wort, with a tiny pink bud. He has found it with the bud, but never an open flower.
• Delsey is still hoping to find another rarity, an odd version of a common spring flower called the trout lily. The regular trout lily is a cheerful, simple yellow flower that is easy to find in early spring, when trees do not yet have leaves and the forest floor is flooded with sunshine.
“Those spring ephemerals (early spring flowers) are my favourite, and they also tend to be the most native,” he said. Many flowers commonly found in Ontario today are imports either from other countries or other regions.
tspears@postmedia.com
Tom Delsey and Gwynneth Evans have documented more than 200 wildflowers in the Gatineau Park.
查看原文...
