Field Botanists of Ontario’s 31th Annual General Meeting Saturday – Sunday, September 12 and 13, 2015 Peterborough

The AGM will be held in Peterborough at the Lion’s Club on Saturday September 12, beginning at 5:00 p.m.  Please join us for an evening of good food, socializing, and entertainment.  Enjoy a catered meal, cash bar, and a presentation by Jeff Saarela from the Canadian Museum of Nature.

As part of our AGM weekend event, we have organized a variety of field trips lead by renowned botanists and naturalists in the Peterborough area.  The trips showcase some of the area’s premier conservation lands and botanical hot-spots.  Trip descriptions are included below.  Note that field trips are open to non-FBO members after priority has been given to members.  For non-members, there is a surcharge of $5 per person per trip.

Please print and fill out the registration form below, indicating your choice of field trips and whether you will be attending the banquet/social on Saturday evening. 

Please make your cheques payable to: “Field Botanists of Ontario” and send your cheque and registration form to: 

           

Dan Westerhof

244 Hunter St W.

Hamilton, ON L8P1S1

Your cheque will be cashed following the AGM. Refunds will be issued, provided cancellations are received 7 days prior to the AGM, at the latest. No-shows will not be refunded.

For those intending to stay overnight, there are a variety of accommodations available in the Peterborough area.

For the field trips, please arrive adequately supplied with food and drinks, and in proper footwear and clothing.  As per our policies, personal collecting of plant material (whole specimens or parts, seeds, etc.) is not permitted on trips unless stated otherwise. The trip leader may take voucher specimens for deposition in recognized herbaria.

Field Trips:  Saturday September 12, 2015

Petroglyphs Provincial Park

Leader: Bill Crins (Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry)

10:15 am – 3:15 pm

Located northeast of Peterborough, Petroglyphs Provincial Park is well-known for its First Nations rock carvings; however, the approximately 1600 ha park also supports a diversity of plant communities and flora characteristic of the Great Lake-St. Lawrence Lowland Region. Habitats include rocky ridges and outcrops with thin cover of herbs and grasses and scattered trees; conifer stands dominated by red and white pine; mixed conifer-hardwood forests, and bottomland meadows and swamps.   Because the park is located on southern edge of the Precambrian Shield, many of the plants are acidophiles, but there are marble exposures which will support a few calciphiles.  

We will be hiking one of the trails in the park, which are 5-7 km in length.  The distance covered will depend on timing.  If there is time left in the afternoon, we may stop at McGinnis Lake (also inside the park), which is a meromictic, marl-bottomed lake.

Mosquitoes are likely to be present, and poison-ivy is present in some parts of the park, particularly where there are marble outcrops.   Long sleeves and pants are recommended.  The trails are relatively long, with irregular terrain.  Pack a lunch, plenty of water, and sunscreen.

Meet at the parking lot at the Learning Centre of the park (end of the road, 2-3 km in from the park entrance) at 10:15 (park gates open at 10:00).  The park entrance is at 2249 Northey’s Bay Rd. Woodview, ON.  Please note that there is day use fee of a $14.50/vehicle (unless you have a seasonal park pass).  Carpooling is encouraged.

Oak Heights Prairie

Leader: Todd Farrell (The Nature Conservancy of Canada)

10:00 am - 3:00 pm

Explore the eastern end of the Oak Ridges Moraine in the footsteps of the famous Canadian botanist John Macoun, who lived and worked in the Castleton area and explored the Oak Heights Prairie, which is part of the NCC Barr property.  This tour will explore that property, a restoration hot spot, and we will see the tallgrass prairie and oak savanna plants, many of which will be easily recognizable at this time of year, that make this one of the key NCC properties within the Rice Lake Plains Natural Area. 

Participants may encounter poison ivy, mosquitos, and ticks, so please dress accordingly and bring insect repellant.    Comfortable hiking shoes, long pants and shirt are recommended.

Pack a lunch, plenty of water, and sunscreen.

Directions:  From 401 at County Road 25 (exit 497), travel north approximately 7.5 through Castleton. County Rd. 25 veers west and becomes County Rd. 22. Follow this and turn north on Jakobi Road, which ends in about 3 km at Dunbar Road. Travel west on Dunbar Rd for 2.3 km to Russ Creek Road, park along the road side. Access to the land is gained by walking north on Russ Creek Road to the property sign on the east side of the road.

Field Trips:  Sunday September 13, 2015

Warsaw Caves Conservation Area

Leader: Mike Oldham (Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry)

10:00 am – 3:00 pm

Located northeast of Peterborough, the Warsaw Caves Conservation Area and provincially significant ANSI offers a diversity of karst landscape features, including limestone plains, solution holes, underground channels, and limestone cliffs. Limestone plains along the Indian River support upland coniferous and mixed successional forests, which are representative of limestone plain upland forests in the Central Region. An area of mature Sugar Maple forest (75-140 years old) dominates the deeper soil deposits in the central portion of the area.  Trip participants can expect to see a variety of alvar and forest species, with a good diversity of ferns including locally rare species such as Walking Fern and Maidenhair Spleenwort.

We may encounter poison ivy, ticks, and chiggers.  Hiking boots, long pants, long-sleeved shirt, hat, sun screen, and insect repellent are recommended.  Pack a lunch and plenty of water.

The park entrance is located at 289 Caves Road, Warsaw, ON.  Please note that a separate park entrance fee may apply: $12.00/car or $4.50/walk-in.  Car-pooling is encouraged.

Alderville Black Oak Savanna (ABOS)

Leaders: Rick Beaver and Janine McLeod (ABOS)

10:00 am – 2:00 pm

Located southeast of Peterborough, the Alderville Black Oak Savanna (ABOS) is a 150 acre natural area managed by the Alderville First Nation.  The area supports provincially rare tallgrass prairie and savanna habitats as well as oak/pine woodland.  A number of Species at Risk inhabit the site, including Eastern Meadowlark, Bobolink, Wood Thrush, and Mottled Duskywing and Monarch Butterflies.  Visitors in September will see Big Bluestem, Little Bluestem, Indian Grass, and many aster species at their peak.  A diversity of other prairie and savanna plants may be seen, including:  Prairie Buttercup, Prairie Lily, Slender Wheatgrass, Bicknell’s Frostweed, Canada Rock Rose, Pointed-leaf Tick Trefoil, Black Snakeroot, Tall Green Milkweed, Prairie Willow, Senega Snakeroot, Downy Arrow-wood Viburnum, Prairie Cinquefoil, Hoary Vervain, Thin-leaved Sunflower, and Gray Goldenrod.

The tour will include areas of the site that are in different stages of restoration.  Trip participants will learn about the history of the site and how the area is being restored and managed to maintain high quality prairie and savanna habitat. 

Poison ivy may be encountered by those who venture off the trails. The trails are mowed and have a moderate slope in places.  Long pants, closed shoes, a hat, and sunscreen are recommended.   Pack a lunch and water bottle.  Coffee, tea, and cold drinks as well as refills for your water bottles will be available on-site.

Meet at the ABOS Ecology Centre located at 8467 County Road 18, Alderville, ON.  Visit http://www.aldervillesavanna.ca/index.html for more information.

Field Botanists of Ontario

Annual General Meeting and Dinner

Saturday September 12, 2015

Peterborough Lion’s Community Centre

5:00 pm – 9:30 pm

Following Saturday’s field trips, we will meet at the Peterborough Lion’s Community Centre for our evening AGM program.  The Community Centre is located at 347 Burnham Street in Peterborough.

AGM Program

5:00 – 6:00      Social hour: an opportunity to meet and chat with fellow FBO members and enjoy some refreshments.  A cash bar will be available.

6:00 – 7:00      Buffet Dinner

7:00 – 8:00      Feature Speaker:  Jeff M. Saarela (Research Scientist, Canadian Museum of Nature)

           

“From Spruce to Shore: Arctic Botany of the Coppermine River, Nunavut”

In July 2014, Jeff and his colleagues explored the rich flora of the Coppermine River valley, including spectacular Bloody Falls/Kugluk Territorial Park and Kugluktuk in western Nunavut. In this botanically underexplored area, the treeline reaches its northern limit in Nunavut, just 40 km south of the Arctic coast. Among more than 1000 collections of vascular plants are many first records for Nunavut and numerous major and minor range extensions for boreal and Arctic species. Detailed floristic knowledge of this area provides solid baseline knowledge of plant biodiversity that may be useful for tracking future change in the area due to climate change.  

8:00 – 9:30      Annual General Meeting

Agenda

Ø  Call to Order

Ø  Introduction of FBO Executive and address of the President

Ø  Presentation of Goldie Award

Ø  Approval of Agenda

Ø  Approval of the 2014 AGM Minutes

Ø  Treasurer’s Report

Ø  Auditor’s Report

Ø  Membership Chairman’s Report

Ø  Nominating Committee Report and election of officers

Ø  Suggestions for future trips and location of 2016 AGM

Ø  General discussion and other business

Ø  Adjournment

Online Resources for Winter Twig ID

BOOKS

Woody Plants in Winter online FREE!

http://chestofbooks.com/flora-plants/trees/Woody-Plants-Winter/index.html#.Uu2GUD1dXHY

Winter Botany available online in PDF for free

https://archive.org/details/winterbotany1918trel

PICTURES

Portrait of Earth by Josh Sayers

http://www.portraitoftheearth.com/trees/specieslist.html

-          Excellent high resolution pictures

-          Extensive list of species from Southern Ontario

Flora by Max.

http://www.florabymax.net/FLORAbyMAX/WinBudSel.htm

Good pictures of common species

ONLINE KEYS

Tree ID app for phone or tablet

http://dendro.cnre.vt.edu/

Winter Twig ID

http://dendro.cnre.vt.edu/dendrology/syllabus/twigkey/location.htm

-          Narrows it down to a few options

-          Has photo profiles of each species including bud shots

Winter Twig Workshop

The FBO is holding a winter twig workshop on February 22nd, at the University of Guelph Arboretum, at the J.C. Taylor Nature Centre.  Brian Lacey will be the instructor.  It will include a "laboratory" component for the morning, where we will learn the characters that help identify trees in non-leafy conditions such as bud scars, bud scales and bark.  In the afternoon we will head out to the arboretum to put these skills into practice.

Please send an email to fbo.trips@gmail.com if you are interested.

Goldie Award Winner 2014 - Dorothy Tiedje

 In 2014, the Field Botanists of Ontario present the 8th John Goldie Award to Dorothy Tiedje. This award is given annually to an individual or organization whose efforts have made a significant contribution to field botany in the province of Ontario. The award honours John Goldie who conducted botanical surveys in Upper Canada and beyond in the early 1800’s, mostly on foot. 
 Dorothy and her late husband, John Tiedje, have been members of the Field Botanists of Ontario since its creation in 1984 and were present at the first meeting at Red Bay that year. They thoroughly enjoyed the many FBO outings and workshops and the friends they made. Dorothy was on the FBO board at one time, with meetings in Toronto. She led at least five field trips for FBO including trips to Walpole Island (1989), Ausable River (1992), Sarnia Howard Watson Trail (1995), and Port Franks (2005 and 2008).

 It must be emphasized that Dorothy and John acted as a team for many of the botanical activities for which she is being recognized by FBO. The Goldie Award is not the first award that recognized their combined efforts. In 1999, they were given a Meritorious Service Award by Lambton Wildlife Incorporated and they were included on the Lambton Wildlife Incorporated President’s Honours list three times. Dorothy served on the Board of Lambton Wildlife for many years and as president for one term. In 2007, they were given an individual Conservation Award by Carolinian Canada for their work. In 2009 the Lambton Woodlot Owners’ Assn. gave them their yearly award.


 Dorothy and John worked together for over 40 years to compile a complete inventory of  the vascular plants in Lambton County. In that time they published 13 editions of that inventory [Tiedje, 2010]. That inventory served as the basis for contributions to the Guide to the Natural Areas of Lambton County [Catterson] in 2009 and to The Huron Shore Flyway report [Sarnia Urban Wildlife Committee] in 2007. During her field inventories, she made a number of  significant plant discoveries, one of the most exciting of which was the discovery of a new genus of native grass for Canada, Diarrhena obovata which she found in 1988 in the Ausable River Valley, Lambton County [Oldham, 1995]. 

 Jane Bowles once said that John was good at spotting unusual plants. Dorothy did the collecting, preserving, identifying and cataloguing.  Starting in 1963, (with Queen Anne’s Lace) Dorothy created a herbarium of Lambton Co. vascular plants. They took a duplicate of each collection to UWO where Jim Phipps, personally, in Dorothy’s presence, approved or corrected the ID. From all available records, and from their own collections, Dorothy compiled the list which John persuaded the computer to organize numerically as to plant families and alphabetically as to species within the families. John looked after the reproduction and printing. Dorothy also has a small collection of  Lambton mosses, liverworts, and lichens.
 Dorothy’s contribution extended to helping students complete their thesis work. In 1988 she helped Pascale Rettien with her thesis on Ulmus fulva (U .rubra, Slippery Elm from the Hungry Hollow woodlot) for the Diplome d’etat de Docteur en Pharmacie at the Universite D’Aix, Marseille. She worked with Nikki May on her MSc. on Volunteer Monitoring of Forest Restoration at the University of Guelph in 2004 by identifying many plants collected for that project. Also in 2004, she assisted Pak Kin Chan at York University with field work for a thesis related to the Karner Blue Reserve at Port Franks. That thesis was entitled “Plant Communities in Oak Savannahs in Ontario: Are we ready for reintroduction of the Karner Blue Butterfly (Lycaeides melissa samuelis)?” Dorothy and John were involved with hands-on efforts to aid FON/NCC volunteers remove the invasive Dog Strangling Vine (Cynanchum nigrum) at the Port Franks Forested Dunes Nature Reserve and to reduce the amounts of Knapweed on the Howard Watson Nature Trail in Sarnia.  

 Dorothy and John made at least 25 wildflower presentations, based on John’s superb photographs. Dorothy inventoried and listed plants on the Howard Watson Trail, Canatara Park, and many other Lambton locations.

 In April 2009, John and Dorothy donated the Tiedje Woods in Hungry Hollow to the Thames Talbot Land Trust. The 6.1-ha (15-acre) wooded property is located in the Ausable River Valley area of natural and scientific interest (ANSI) and the Ausable River Valley Carolinian Canada site. It has been certified as ecologically sensitive through the Eco-Gift Program administered by the Canadian Wildlife Service. 

 Dorothy Tiedje has made outstanding contributions in documenting Ontario plants, supporting the Field Botanists of Ontario and conserving natural places. The Field Botanists of Ontario is pleased to recognize these accomplishments by awarding Dorothy with the 2014 John Goldie Award. 

References: 

Oldham, M., S.J.Darbyshire, D.McLeod, D.A. Sutherland, D.Tiedje, and J.M.. Bowles, 1995. New and noteworthy Ontario grass (Poaceae) records. The Michigan Botanist 34: 105-132.

Tiedje, J, and D. Tiedje. 2010. Vascular Plants of Lambton County, Ontario. 14th Edit. Published by the authors. 66 pp.

The Huron Shore Flyway.  2007.  Sarnia Urban Wildlife Committee 2nd Edit. 20 pp. 


Catterson, G., 2009.  Guide to the Natural Areas of Lambton County. 1st Edition 2009.  Lambton Wildlife Incorporated, Sarnia. 32 pp.   

TRCA Sedge Workshop 2014

Toronto and Region Conservation is considering hosting a sedge identification workshop in the summer of 2014. 

This course which has run successfully in the past will run again pending the appropriate interest level.  The 2-day workshop, consisting of in-class and in-field training is designed to introduce participants to a wide cross-section of sedge species found throughout the Greater Toronto Area and the keys to their identification. 

Workshop details, including dates and registration information will be provided at a later date. 

If you or anyone you know would be interested in attending such a workshop please respond back before February 17th to:

Natasha Gonsalves, B.Sc. 
Sedge Workshop Coordinator, Watershed Monitoring and Reporting Section
Toronto and Region Conservation AuthorityE-mail: ngonsalves@trca.on.ca 

(I have attended this workshop and it is a great one for woodland and wetland sedges!)

Early Trip alert for 2014!

The FBO is offering a Winter Woody Plant ID workshop at the University of Guelph Arboretum Taylor Centre in Guelph on Sunday, February 2^nd, 2014.  Brian Lacey, who helped to develop a manual of woody plants for the Department of Botany at the University of Guelph, will provide guidance on the characters used to recognize woody plant species without their leaves, including bark, winter buds, leaf scars and growth form.  We will start using a hand lens and field guides with some samples indoors, and follow up with a walk around the Arboretum to apply our knowledge. The trip will end at approximately 4:00.  If you are interested please contact Sarah Mainguy  for details.  Registration will be restricted to approximately 24 people due to space restrictions.  Please note that there will be an additional charge to cover the room rental of $9.00 per person.

Goldie Award Winner 2013 - Adele Crowder

The 2013 recipient of the Goldie Award was Adele Crowder.  On October 17th 2013, FBO President Mike McMurtry and Bill McIlveen travelled to Kingston to present the award to Adele during the monthly meeting of the Kingston Field Naturalists.

Adele Crowder was born in Ireland, completed her PhD on the chemistry of peat bogs at Dublin University, and worked as a research associate in Paleoecology at the University of Belfast. In 1966 Adele came to Canada with her husband Christopher and three children and settled in Kingston where
Chris, a medieval historian, was appointed professor in the History Department at Queen’s University. Having initially turned down a full-time position in the Biology Department at Queen’s in order to balance family commitments, Adele began working part-time in the department, first as a lab coordinator in 1967, then as an assistant to Roland Beschel in the Fowler Herbarium, and eventually as a Professor of Biology. In 1970 she was named Curator of the Fowler Herbarium, a position
which she held until 1995. In 1971 she helped to develop a general Ecology course – Biology 202 – which she continued to teach with Professor Raleigh Robertson for 20 years. This course took a hands-on approach to field ecology with numerous field trips in the Kingston area and to the
field station at Lake Opinicon. Adele was a very involved and approachable teacher who inspired many students to pursue ecology and organismal biology as a course of study.

Adele is quick to tell you that she is not a taxonomist or field botanist – but rather a theoretical ecologist who makes observations in the field and takes them back to the lab to figure them out . Her research accomplishments are therefore cross - disciplinary in nature, and cover a broad spectrum of habitats.

The subjects of her academic publications range from the paleoecology of eastern Ontario streams and lake basins – to studies of aquatic macrophytes, wetlands, sediments and fish habitat in the Bay of Quinte – to metal uptake and toxicity in plants adjacent the Sudbury smelters – to forest succession in old fields. In addition to her academic work, Adele has conducted numerous botanical and ecological investigations and produced 45 technical reports for Parks Canada, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, and the private sector. Focused on the Kingston region and eastern Ontario, these include ecosystem and species recovery plans, environmental assessments, feasibility studies and general inventories.

Over the course of her career Adele has supervised or mentored and co-published with 26 students. Among them, Don Cuddy, retired ecologist for OMNR, Dr. Gregory Taylor Dean of Science in the Office of Sustainability, and Professor in the Department of Biology, University of Alberta and the
late Sam Vander Kloet who was professor of Botany at Acadia University.  As Curator of the Fowler Herbarium Adele was determined to make specimen information accessible for use. In 1996, she
was senior author of the Plants of the Kingston Region and has continued to update that publication with new specimen records in subsequent years. In 2003, she co-authored with Vivien Taylor a catalogue for the Jordon Library exhibition: Mrs.Traill, Mrs. Roy and Miss Boyd: Plant collectors in 19th century Upper Canada. The publication celebrates these three women, whose plant collections
were originally deposited in the Fowler Herbarium, and places them in an historical context of
Canadian botany and taxonomy at that time.

Adele has been , throughout her career, actively associated with the Queen’s University Biological Station (QUBS) at Lake Opinicon and has documented its flora. In 1976 she was instrumental in securement of the Hughson Tract, a significant expansion of land holdings of the station, which enabled long-term field studies and started the series of acquisitions which has provided a significant amount o f working property and a substantive conservation presence in the Rideau Lakes area (now in excess of 3,232 ha).

In 1979, Adele introduced the idea of and codeveloped and taught the Naturalists Workshops which were offered by the QUBS for 19 years. These week-long events were designed to provide interpreters, professional field biologists and dedicated naturalists with a broad knowledge of natural history, ecology and animal behaviour, and to assist with identification skills. She also convened one- or two-day workshops on wetlands, species at risk, and other topical subjects to train and enhance
communication amongst biologists working in the field. Adele continues to lend her scientific expertise to, and speak out on, local environmental issues.

The 2013 Goldie award celebrated Adele Crowder’s many contributions to our understanding of the ecology of Ontario plants and the impacts of human activity on them. She has provided us a model for the modern ecologist who increasingly needs to step outside of disciplinary boundaries and be willing to look at the interactions between plants, animals, fungi and their environments. Thank you Adele.