2024

Fall 2023/Winter & Spring 2024

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Member’s Meeting Outdoors Point Pleasant May 27, 6:30pm

The next and final meeting (until next fall) for the Nova Scotia Wild Flora Society will be outdoors, rain or shine, at Point Pleasant Park in Halifax on Monday May 27 at 6:30pm. Please meet us at the Prince of Wales Martello Tower, shown on the map.

PPP (Point Pleasant Park, 77 ha) is owned by the British Government, but the park is administered by the Department of Canadian Heritage while the Halifax Regional Municipality holds the lease. The municipality pays 1 shilling annually for the lease.

PPP was largely a closed canopy mature evergreen forest until Hurricane Juan hit shores of PPP in Sep 2003, leaving only a few groves untouched. An extensive public consultation was held in 2005 in which the many respondents expressed a desire for “Nature dominated landscape, Natural beauty, a place to connect with local history, a non-commercial park…” The Point Pleasant Park Comprehensive Plan was released in 2008 with a goal “To create a naturalized forest ecosystem”; it was widely applauded. In 2019, a tree-thinning program was begun, the objectives being to cut out invasive tree species such as Norway Maple, and to “thin out the weaker trees”. The final stage of thinning will begin this fall.

After discussing the member business at 6:30, we will look at vegetation in thinned and unthinned areas – there will be lots of spring flowering plants!

Some of us may arrive before 6:30 to scout around the park before the meeting.

 

Bluets – Hedyotis caerulea

Member’s Zoom Meeting March 25 7:00pm – Rebecca Parker Gets Us Up to Date with The Young Naturalists Club

Pollinator Count and Bee Friendly Activities

Rebecca (Becky) Parker is Executive Director at Nature Nova Scotia and helps run the Nova Scotia Young Naturalist’s Club. She will talk to us about their activities including the multi day expedition to SW NS in 2021 with the YNC’s older youth chapter, where they worked on various plant surveys. They found and recorded field notes on species like redroot, goldencrest, and thread-leaved sundew.

After returning home they then compiled their observations and drawings into the Kids Guide to Weird Plants book, which the YNC now distributes.

They repeated the trip in 2023 and chose educational signage as their science communication topic, drafting signs that could be placed in and around national or provincial parks in the area. They’re hoping to make that a reality this or next year, but really the best part of both trips has been just letting the kids explore and draw and ask questions.

As part of the meeting, we also hope to talk with Becky about how the Nova Scotia Wild Flora Society can better work with the Young Naturalists.

If you are a member of NSWFS, you should be getting an email with the Zoom link. If you do not receive it, please contact novascotiawildflora@gmail.com

Monday Feb 26, 7:30pm – Member’s Meeting at Museum and via Zoom: Mike Lancaster shows us the new Island Lake Wilderness Area

The next members meeting will be on Monday Feb. 26 at 7:30 pm, both in person at the Museum of Natural History 1747 Summer St. and by Zoom. If you are a member, you will be recieving a link to the Zoom presentation in your email closer to the date.

Mike Lancaster, Executive Director of the St. Margaret’s Bay Stewardship Association, will take us on a virtual tour of the newly designated Island Lake Wilderness Area, a 3,927-hectare Protected Area in the St. Margaret’s Bay Area and part of the broader Ingram River Wilderness Area proposal. Mike will also discuss the 8-year campaign that this designation required and the need for continued support for the 11,000 hectares of the proposed Ingram River Wilderness Area that remains unprotected.

Monday Jan 22, 2024; Members’ Photo Night via Zoom

Our next member’s meeting will be on January 22 in the new year. As has been our tradition for many years, you are invited to share up to 20 of your favourite wild flora photos. Do you have a photo of a Mystery Plant to include?  You only need to have Zoom capability and current membership.

If you would like to participate , please read the attached document Slide Presentation Specs 2024 and contact novascotiawildflora@gmail.com

Netted Chain Fern – Photo Bob Kennedy

All members will received an email invitation to the Zoom meeting later in January.

Time to renew for 2023! Membership is still $15 individual, $20 family membership. You can pay by e-transfer or cheque to novascotiawildflora@gmail.com

 

Monday Mar 25, 2024, 7:30 pm,  Becky Parker tells us about  recent activities of the Young Naturalist Club and their new book “Kids Guide to Weird Plants”