2024 Annual Meeting Report
The 124th Josselyn Botanical Society Summer Meeting
Cobscook Institute, Trescott Township, ME, July 15-19, 2024. We had an excellent meeting and only got rained on for half a day! We would like to thank Monday evening speaker, Dr. Dwayne Tomah, a Language Keeper for the Passamaquoddy People, who spoke about the wax Cylinder Recordings of the Passamaquoddy, repatriation, and land back issues. Thanks to all the volunteer drivers, as we carpooled to sites this year. Thanks also to our hosts, the staff of Cobscook Institute. Special thanks to JBS member Louise Barteau for facilitating local logistics.
Tuesday
Tuesday morning we headed to the Bog Cove Preserve in Cutler and Trescott Township, a Maine Coast Heritage trust property that has some nice Maritime Spruce-Fir forests, a small pond (Norse Pond) fringed by peatland vegetation, and a spur trail that leads down to a cobble beach. Towards the oceanside end of this spur trail, we were lucky enough to hear a merlin (Falco columbarius) repeatedly calling as we observed large-leaved goldenrod (Solidago macrophylla) and mountain wood fern (Dryopteris campyloptera) growing out of lush beds of Dicranum mosses and Cladonia lichens. We thought we might be near a nest, so we quickly made our way down to the cobble beach to eat our lunches and listen to the pounding surf. On the way back, we spent some time exploring the aquatic and emergent diversity of Norse Pond, potential blackberry (Rubus sp.) hybrids along the trail, and looked at diploid Bartram’s shadbush (Amelanchier bartramiana), and its polyploid look-alikes. Tuesday afternoon was spent at Mowry Beach Preserve in Lubec, a small but diverse preserve owned by the Downeast Conservancy, which is used a lot by students and teachers from the adjacent school. The site featured a boardwalk which made for easy botanizing. Some members engaged in a willow keying exercise, looking at natives such as Salix bebbiana, Salix discolor, Salix eriocephala ssp. eriocepahala var. eriocephala (how’s that for a taxonomic mouthful?), Salix petiolaris, and Salix pyrifolia. The “willow students” tried their hand at keying the mystery willow that had been hinted at in the program, tree-sized specimens with long, narrow, abaxially-hairy leaves. These are locally common, with several hundred (perhaps thousands) in the Lubec area, but generally restricted to this part of Maine and the Maritimes. This taxon is the hybrid between Salix caprea and Salix viminalis, two European species. It has a contentious nomenclature, typically referred to as Salix ×sericans or Salix ×smithiana. Others enjoyed the diversity of graminoids. Tuesday night workshops were “Preserving Plant Specimens: The Good, the Bad, and the Lovely” with Marilee Lovit, “Meet the Peat, Redux” with Ralph Pope, and “Local geology of Whiting Bay” with Kara McCrimmon. Thank you, Kara, Marilee, and Ralph, for the great workshops!
Wednesday
A sunny Wednesday morning was spent at Lily Lake in Trescott Township, a Maine Inland Fisheries &Wildlife management area. Louise Barteau, has been surveying the Tracheophyte flora of the Lake and she gave us a nice introduction to her work, followed by Andrea Nurse’s explanation of the geology and timing of the lake’s formation after glacial retreat. Dry roadsides with prairie willow (Salix humilis) offered another willow keying opportunity, and in the lake we saw multiple carices, Pickerelweed (Pontedaria cordata), bullhead lily (Nuphar variegata), bur-reeds (Sparganium americanum and S. fluctuans), as well as elongated aquatic forms of common water-primrose (Ludwigia palustris) and Dwarf St. Johnswort (Hypericum mutilum). Fireweed (Chamerion angustifolium), in peak bloom during our meeting. Wednesday afternoon we explored the Morong Point Wildlife Management area in Lubec, which had good graminoid diversity in an infrequently mown field adjacent to a salt marsh. The rare Dawnland sedge (Carex waponahkikensis) grew with pointed broom sedge (Carex scoparia), the former previously recognized as variety tessalata of the latter. JBS member Marilee Lovit has spent a lot of time researching these taxa and she and fellow JBS member Arthur Haines named the Dawnland sedge at the specific level. Marilee thoroughly explained the morphological differences between the two taxa and it was great to have them side by side. The aptly named open-field sedge (Carex conoidea) and yellow-green sedge (Carex flava) were both abundant. A narrow band of shrubs, dominated by fan-leaved hawthorn (Crataegus flabellata) separated the fields from the saltmarsh, where previously Carex vacillans had been recorded. Unfortunately, the population appears to have been extirpated from this site. It was a hot sunny afternoon, and many members were seen keying plants in a semi-reclining position!
Thursday
Thursday, we carpooled across the border to Campobello Island, and all cars made it through in a timely manner and without incident, much to Eric’s relief as the driver of the front car. In the morning we parked at the bog boardwalk at Eagle Hill Bog. Members walked the boardwalk through a black spruce bog, observing ericaceous shrub diversity, along with cloudberry (Rubus chamaemorus), a few cottonsedges (Eriophorum angustifolium ssp. angustifolium, E. vaginatum, and E. virginicum), diploid Amelanchier bartramiana (and its hybrids), few-flowered sedge (Carex pauciflora), and shining rose (Rosa nitida). As a special treat, we were joined by two members of the New Brunswick Botany Club, Brian Stone and Nelson Poirier. It was raining lightly and very foggy so the potential views from the boardwalk viewing platform consisted solely of dense fog! Some members briefly explored the cobble shores across the road before heading to lunch on the southern tip of Campobello. We ate our sandwiches amongst dense fog, and the rare plant species, Iris hookeri (beach-head iris) and beach roseroot (Rhodiola rosea), along with the not rare but charming little green sedge (Carex viridula). After lunch, we explored what was for many members the highlight of the trip, a large Coastal Plateau Bog Ecosystem with a Maritime Huckleberry Bog. The rain lifted and it cleared to provide excellent views across the large peatland, whose far edge met and was being eroded by the surf. From the peatland edge, a road access for future boardwalk construction allowed us to see the convexity of the peatland surface. Dwarf huckleberry (Gaylussacia bigeloviana) was a dominant, occurring with Carex pauciflora, bog goldenrod (Solidago uliginosa), Sheep-laurel (Kalmia angustifolia), Bog-laurel (Kalmia polifolia), and Trichophorum cespitosum ssp. cespitosum. Near the ocean, where the peatland became lower and wetter, dense lawns of tall cottonsedge Eriophorum angustifolium ssp. angustifolium dominated. Thursday’s field day was followed by an evening of snacks, drinks, and music-making. New members and local residents, Allison and Kris Paprocki joined in with the usual JBS songs but also displayed their musical talents with some songs new to us.
