Pawing for Prairie Plants

Manitoba’s native prairies are endangered because most of them have been cultivated for annual crop production. As a result, some of the rarest species of plants in the province are found in the prairies. The Manitoba Museum helps to document where the rarest plants grow by conducting careful surveys of the prairies that remain. Some of the rare plants are tiny and can only be seen by pawing through the thick grasses. This summer, I was able to visit two areas in the southwest to examine the native vegetation there: Sioux Valley Dakota Nation and the Nature Conservancy of Manitoba’s Jackson Pipestone Prairie and Wetlands.

At Sioux Valley, I was able to tour several areas with intact prairie and wetlands with Kevin Tacan and Jennifer McIvor. During the field work, we found several rare plant “hotspots”, that contained multiple species of provincially rare plants. In total, 25 rare plant species were encountered, with one hotspot containing a whopping 12 species within a very small area. Although the plant species encountered are rare in Manitoba, they are more common in Saskatchewan and Alberta, and none of them were legally protected.

The Jackson Pipestone site is a new Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) preserve with both intact prairie and wetlands. Although the site was purchased to help protect the rare birds that nest there, including the Burrowing Owl, I discovered several rare plants growing on the prairie as well.

Fig. 5. Broom Snakeweed (Gutierrezia sarothrae) was found at both prairie sites visited in 2024.

One of the goals of my research this summer was to provide the landowners at both of these sites with a better understanding of the plant diversity that is present, to aid in species conservation. It’s hard to protect species when you don’t even know they are there!

December is the time of year when people tend to eat desserts with lots of spices in them, including the ubiquitous gingerbread. Spices don’t come from any particular plant part, they are simply ingredients that are added in small quantities to add flavour, rather than calories, to a dish. The spices in gingerbread actually come from every part of a plant: roots, shoots, flowers and fruits.

The main spices in gingerbread consist of (left to right): ginger (Zingiber officinale), cinnamon (Cinnamomum verum), cloves (Syzygium aromaticum) and nutmeg/mace (Myristica fragrans).

Cinnamon (Cinnamomum spp.) comes from the shoots of broad-leaved, evergreen trees in the Laurel family; they are native to India and Ceylon. There are several species of Cinnamon but the most common one is Cassia Cinnamon (C. cassia). Ceylon Cinnamon (C. verum) is a bit more expensive but can still be found in North American stores. Once Cinnamon trees are three years old, the outer bark is harvested.  This distorts their growth forms into dense shrubs rather than trees. The dried, rolled bark (“sticks”) can be used whole as a mulling spice, or ground into a powder to use in baking. Cinnamon and Cassia have been popular for a long time; Egyptians in 2,000 B.C. imported it from China, and used it to enbalm mummies.  Nowadays most people just eat it.

Another food product derived from plant shoots that adds a distinctive bitterness to gingerbread is molasses. This sticky, dark syrup is actually a “waste” product from the sugar-refining process. Although Sugar Beets (Beta vulgaris) are sometimes used nowadays to manufacture molasses in colder countries, traditionally sugar came from Sugar Cane (Saccharum officinarum). In Canada most of our sugar is made from imported Sugar Cane, although some Sugar Beets are grown in Alberta. The shoots of this very tall, tropical grass native to the South Pacific, are harvested and then crushed to extract the sweet juice. This dark brown juice is then boiled to form sugar crystals; the thick brown syrup that is left behind is the molasses.

Image: Illustration of Cloves (Syzygium aromaticum) in Köhler’s Medizinal-Pflanzen by Franz Eugen Köhler. Public domain.

Whatever you use spices for, they are guaranteed to do one thing: make your food delicious! Happy baking!

Fungi grow just about everywhere and yet we are usually ignorant of their presence until they produce mushrooms in our lawns or mold on the food in our fridge. Although they are common components of ecosystems (and, disconcertingly, our fridges!), and essential for nutrient recycling, we actually know very little about them. 

A long time ago, fungi were considered plants because they don’t move like animals do. But fungi are actually a completely unique group of organisms. Unlike plants, they cannot produce sugar via photosynthesis. They also have cell walls made of chitin not cellulose, like plants do. Chitin is actually the same material found in insect exoskeletons. Thus, fungi are actually more closely related to animals than plants. However, unlike animals, they obtain nutrition by absorbing, not ingesting, food. Animals put food into their bodies but fungi put their bodies into food! 

Fungi spend most of their lives being inconspicuous, but in reality, they are all around you. Many people know that fungal “roots” called hyphae, occur in the soil, but they are also found in places you might not expect. Fungi can be found in both fresh and saltwater environments. They also live on the outsides and insides of both plants and animals. Scientists have found at least several hundred fungal species living inside human guts, where they help us digest our food. As well, microscopic fungal spores float in the air all around us. Scientists estimate that there are 1,000 to 10,000 fungal spores in every cubic meter of air. Some fungi (e.g. lichens) have even found a way to live inside rocks! 

Most fungi are saprophytes, which means they digest dead plants and animals. By doing so, they release the nutrients back into the ecosystem for other plants and animals to use. They are part of nature’s recycling crew. However, some fungi also poison or trap microbes like nematodes (tiny worms) to get protein, so they are at least partly carnivorous. 

Many fungi are parasitic on living organisms. If you’ve ever had athlete’s foot or ringworm,  you’ve been parasitized by a fungus!

Fungal diseases can devastate plant, animal and human communities. The Irish Potato famine was caused by the introduction of a fungal potato disease from South America into Ireland. Right now, many of Canada’s bats are dying of White Nose Syndrome caused by the fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans. 

Not all fungal relationships are negative though. Many fungi form mutually beneficial relationships called mutualisms, with algae and plants. Mycorrhizal fungi interact in a positive way with plants, receiving sugar in exchange for water and minerals. Most plant species (~90%) form mycorrhizal interactions with fungi. Lichens are communities of fungi living together with algae and cyanobacteria. They inhabit areas where neither organism could live alone, such as on rocks. In fact, lichens help create soil by breaking down rocks into smaller pieces. They also protect soil from wind and water erosion, particularly in dry areas, like grasslands. 

There are many species of Manitoba mushrooms that are edible, including many Boletes, Chanterelles, Chicken-of-the-Woods (Laetiporus sulphurous), Morels, Oyster Mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus), Puffballs and Shaggy Mane (Coprinus comatus) to name a few. However, there are also deathly poisonous ones like Amanitas (Amanita) and False Morels (Gyromitra esculenta), that can be confused with some edible species. 

If you want to collect and eat wild mushrooms, obtain some good mushroom field guides, and learn how to identify both the edible AND the poisonous species found here. I highly recommend taking a mushroom foraging course, or going out with an experienced picker before eating any wild mushrooms. Only eat mushrooms that you are 100% certain you have identified correctly. Keep at least one mushroom whole and uncooked to take to the hospital in case you get sick. Collect only young mushrooms, as older ones can become inedible, toxic, wormy or woody. Also remember to forage responsibly by only collecting what you will eat, and leaving at least some mushrooms behind so that the species can reproduce. 

Note: The Manitoba Museum is not responsible for any illness or poisoning resulting from incorrect mushroom identification and consumption. Please forage safely! 

It’s almost Valentines Day and the flower that most people associate with that holiday is bright red. Long-stemmed red roses have long been the flower of choice for people wooing their sweethearts. But if you’ve ever gone hiking in a wild Manitoba grassland or forest, you might have noticed that the roses we have here are pink, rarely white, but not red. In fact, there are no bright red wildflowers in our province. Why not?

To understand the lack of red flowers in Manitoba, we need to think about why flowers exist at all. Flowers are the reproductive organs of plants; they produce eggs and/or pollen. Since plants can’t move around to find a mate, they often use animals to move the pollen from one flower to another. Successfully transferred pollen fertilizes the eggs of the receiving flower. To attract animals, plants grow structures that animals will find attractive, like beautiful or unique scents, and petals with eye-catching colours.  They also usually reward the pollinator with nectar.

Insects are the most abundant pollinators in Manitoba, so most of our flowers are highly attractive to bees, butterflies, moths, flies, wasps and/or beetles. Flowers that are orange, yellow, blue and violet are most attractive to insects, as these colours are readily visible to them. However, unlike humans, insects can also see into the ultraviolet (UV) range. This ability explains the presence of so many, seemingly white flowers in the province. Flowers that we see as pure white or plain yellow, actually usually reflect UV rays, and look much different to insects than to us. White flowers are also often pollinated by moths, because white is more visible in moonlight than any other colour.

Humans have been cultivating roses for thousands of years. In the process, we selected features that we find attractive but that make them largely unattractive to pollinators. Colour is one factor. Insect pollinators do not usually visit red roses because they can’t see them very well. Further, cultivated roses have many, densely packed petals (not just five like the wild ones), that cover up the pollen-containing anthers, making them difficult for pollinators to access. So, the end result is that these beautiful flowers now function only as aids to human, not wild, romance.

The Manitoba Museum’s new Prairies Gallery has a whole exhibit on pollination where you can see what native pollinators look like. © Ian McCausland/Manitoba Museum

This summer I went from Manitoba’s southern-most border all the way to its northern one within just a week. I was fascinated to see how differences in climate had influenced the plant communities. The massive trees of the south give way to nearly treeless tundra in the far north. But despite being separated by over 1,000 kilometers, both places had something in common: climate change was beginning to impact the plants.

In early August, I drove to Buffalo Point First Nation to search for rare plants, with the permission of the community. Buffalo Point is in the extreme southeastern corner of the province. Many plants reach their northeastern limit in that part of the province, including Interrupted Fern (Osmunda claytoniana).

In addition to hiking the trails there, I travelled by boat down the Reed River with two Indigenous guides. I was looking for rare plants that grow on shorelines. Alas, they were not there. Due to the heavy snow and rain this year, the water level was higher than my guides had ever seen in their lives. The water extended right into the forest, killing some of the waterlogged trees and flooding once productive beds of Wild Rice (Zizania palustris).

A week later, I was on a plane to Churchill to search for rare plants in that part of the province. Once again, I visited a river that was swollen beyond its usual level: the Churchill River. My Indigenous guide commented that the normal shoreline vegetation was completely covered by water. But it wasn’t just the river vegetation that was being impacted, either.

Another Indigenous person I met told me that her 70-year old grandfather had witnessed huge changes in the tundra around Churchill in his lifetime. Tall shrubs, like Silver Willow (Salix candida), were much less common in the past. These tall species are now increasing in abundance, as they can out-compete the short, tundra vegetation when temperatures are warmer (Mekonnen, 2021).  With continued warming, this “shrubification” will likely continue, completely changing the plant communities in the far north.

Short, tundra plants like White Mountain Avens (Dryas integrifolia), shown above in fruit, may become rare in Manitoba, as climate change increases arctic temperatures and thaws permafrost. © Manitoba Museum

The new map in the Museum’s Prairies Gallery shows the location of now extinct wetlands like the Great Hay Marsh. © Manitoba Museum

You may have heard the old saying that “nature abhors a vacuum”. To understand this expression, you probably won’t need to look any farther than your own lawn. Although lawns may start out as monocultures of Kentucky Bluegrass (Poa pratensis), they never stay that way. Inevitably, species like Common Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) show up, prompting a flurry of weeding and spraying of herbicides. We are told by lawn care companies that “healthy lawns won’t allow weeds to grow” but that statement is simply not true. Just look at any wild ecosystem in the world. Is it a monoculture with just one species? No, there are always many species. Weeds eventually invade lawns because monocultures are NOT natural. Ecosystems want to return to a natural state.

Native prairie ecosystems are natural polycultures: systems with many plant species. © Manitoba Museum

But why did lawns even become popular in the first place? In Europe, in the 16th century, wealthy landowners began growing lawns to flaunt their status. They didn’t need the land to grow food, they were rich enough to grow completely useless grass on their property instead! As the European middle class began to grow, they also aspired to demonstrate their wealth by growing at least small patches of lawn, if they could. This Western appreciation of the lawn aesthetic still remains with us today, but there are signs that its time is up. Concern about the impact of lawn care pesticides on human health and vulnerable pollinators has prompted many municipalities to enact bans on these chemicals.

Further, the popularity of polyculture lawns is experiencing a resurgence. Polyculture lawns more closely mimic a natural ecosystem by including both grasses (ideally, low growing native species like Blue Grama a.k.a. Bouteloua gracilis) and low growing, broad-leaved plants, such as clover (e.g. Trifolium), native violets (e.g. Early Blue Violet a.k.a. Viola adunca), pussytoes (Antennaria spp.) and yes, maybe even some dandelions. Broad-leaved plants provide pollinators with food, and some species, like legumes, naturally add nitrogen to the soil, reducing the need for fertilizers. In shady areas where grass won’t grow well anyway, ground covers of taller, native plants like Ostrich Fern (Matteucia struthiopteris), Western Canada Violet (Viola canadensis) and Canada Anemone (Anemone canadensis) are great alternatives.

Trying to keep your lawn “weed” free is like running on a treadmill: you spend lots of energy but you never get anywhere. Why not embrace the diversity of plant life, and save your money and back-breaking labour for something else?

When I tell people I am writing a book that describes all of the plants that grow in Manitoba, they are often incredulous. “Don’t we already know how many plants species there are in Manitoba” they ask. Sadly, the answer is no. 

Believe it or not, botanists documented and collected two flowers that were not believed to grow in the province, for the first time ever in 2021. White Avens (Geum canadense) and Tawny Cottongrass (Eriophorum virgatum) grow in northern Minnesota and western Ontario. However, they had never been scientifically collected in Manitoba before. These species join 268 other species of vascular plants that have been scientifically collected since the publication of the “Flora of Manitoba” book in 1957. 

Further, the Royal Alberta Museum’s moss specialist, Dr. Richard Caners, also recently collected 34 species of moss that had not yet been officially documented in Manitoba. So, on average, nearly five new plant species have been added to our provincial list of flora each year for the last 65 years. 

You don’t even need to do field work to find new species! In the last several years, Museum volunteers discovered several previously unknown species in the Museum’s collection of pressed, dried plants. These preserved plants, called “herbarium specimens”, officially confirm the presence of species in the province. Along with the specimen, data on when and where it was collected are provided. The Manitoba Museum alone has over 50,000 of these herbarium specimens. What makes them so valuable is that they can be examined by experts without having to travel back to the area where the plant was collected. Scientists use them to determine the rarity of species, and understand how the climate has changed over time, among other things. 

One of my jobs as Curator is to make sure that all our plants are identified correctly.  This requires studying the  most up-to-date scientific research. While examining specimens of Yellow Evening-primrose (Oenothera biennis), my volunteer and I determined that two specimens were, in fact, a species that was not confirmed to be in Manitoba until very recently: Oakes’ Evening-primrose (O. oakesiana). 

So why are scientists still finding new plants in Manitoba? Part of the reason is that scientific field collecting is poorly funded. There is a widespread perception that Canada is well-explored biologically, and that there is nothing unusual left to find here. So, such expeditions are typically deemed unimportant and not funded. Another reason is that Manitoba has relatively few roads in the northern ¾’s of the province. This makes it very difficult, and expensive, for scientists to visit pristine areas where rare plants may grow. 

When I say that a plant species is “new” to the province, what I mean is that no scientist had collected, preserved and stored a sample of that species in a registered herbarium.  This does not mean, however, that no one has ever seen the plant. Someone may have seen it, but not realized that it was anything unusual. 

As the stewards of large tracts of undisturbed land, Manitoba’s Indigenous peoples are likely aware of the presence of plant species that professional botanists do not know much about. The Manitoba Museum is beginning to work with Indigenous peoples to incorporate their knowledge on the distribution and rarity of the province’s plants into our database. 

When most people think of plants, they typically picture flowers: cherry trees in bloom, colourful tulips and exotic-looking orchids. This is because 90% of all living plant species are flowering plants (i.e., angiosperms). But when dinosaurs first evolved 225 million years ago (mya), flowers were nowhere to be found.

The first land plants did not produce seeds; instead, they reproduced using spores. Like amphibians, they needed water for reproduction, which restricted them to habitats that were moist. These spore-producing plants included mosses, liverworts, club mosses, horsetails, ferns and several, completely extinct plant groups called Rhyniophytes and Zosterophylls. When the first dinosaurs evolved in the Triassic Period (252-201 mya), spore-producing plants, like tree ferns and human-sized quillworts (e.g. Pleuromeia), were common (Palmer et al. 2009). Although these sorts of plants still exist today, their ancestors looked much different than the ones we are familiar with.

Above: Many modern flowering plants, such as Early Yellow Locoweed (Oxytropis campestris), coevolved with pollinating insects, such as bumblebees (Bombus). © Manitoba Museum

So, when you visit the Ultimate Dinosaurs exhibit at the Manitoba Museum during summer 2022, remember to look closely at the murals behind the dinos. They accurately portray the kinds of plants that supported those ancient creatures so long ago.

Mural art from the Ultimate Dinosaurs exhibit showing ancient vegetation communities. © Ultimate Dinosaurs Presented by Science Museum of Minnesota. Created and Produced by the Royal Ontario Museum. Mural Artist: Julius Csotoyi

References

Benton, M.J., Wilf, P. and Sauquet, H., 2022. The Angiosperm Terrestrial Revolution and the origins of modern biodiversity. New Phytologist, 233(5), pp.2017-2035.

Condamine, F.L., Silvestro, D., Koppelhus, E.B. and Antonelli, A., 2020. The rise of angiosperms pushed conifers to decline during global cooling. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(46), pp. 28867-28875.

Cui, D.F., Hou, Y., Yin, P. and Wang, X., 2021. A Jurassic flower bud from the Jurassic of China. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 521.

Palmer, D., Lamb, S., Gavira Guerrero, A. and Frances, P. 2009. Prehistoric life: the definitive visual history of life on earth. New York, N.Y., DK Pub.

Like many of you, I am eagerly awaiting spring so that I can start planting my vegetable garden. There’s nothing better than eating bruschetta with freshly harvested vine-ripened tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum) and steamed green beans (Phaseolus sp.) with fried cream (see recipes at the end). My mouth drools just thinking about it! But the funny thing about tomatoes and green beans is that they are not actually vegetables: they are fruits masquerading as vegetables.

In fact, there are many other things we think of as vegetables that are actually fruits: avocados (Persea americana), cucumber (Cucumis sativus), eggplant (Solanum melongena), okra (Abelmoschus esculentus), olives (Olea europaea), peppers (Capsicum spp.), snow peas (Pisum sativum), squashes including pumpkin (Cucurbita spp.), tomatillos (Physalis spp.) and zucchini (Cucurbita pepo). We tend to define fruits as plant parts that are sweet and vegetables as plant parts that are not sweet. However, botanically, a fruit is a ripened ovary that contains seeds inside it, so all of the aforementioned plants meet the definition of a “fruit”, even though we rarely eat them the way we eat fruit (in a pie with ice cream!). For this reason, some people call them “vegetable fruits”.

Complicating things further is the fact that the fleshy parts of some “fruits”, like apples (Malus domesticus), pears (Pyrus spp.) and strawberries (Fragaria spp.), are not actually ripened ovaries at all, but greatly enlarged fleshy petals, or upper flower stalks.

“Aha” you might be thinking, what about bananas (Musa spp.)?  They don’t have seeds. You may have noticed though, that there are little black specks inside bananas; those are tiny ovules (unfertilized seeds) that never ripened  because the plants are sterile. Since people don’t usually like spitting out seeds, plant breeders have found ways to produce sterile, seedless varieties (often with an odd number of chromosomes) of certain plants such as citrus fruits, watermelons (Citrullus lanatus) and bananas.

There are actually four different kinds of vegetables, which vary according to the part of the plant you are actually eating: roots, stems, leaves, or inflorescences. Root vegetables are either fairly slender taproots (e.g. carrots or Daucus carota), or swollen, tuberous roots (e.g. sweet potato or Ipomoea batatas).  Roots store starch that the plant can use the following year to grow new leaves.

The non-green parts of bulbs, like onions (Allium cepa), are actually special, fleshy leaves that store starch. Some vegetables, like broccoli (Brassica oleracea), actually consist of upper stems and unopened flowers, known as inflorescences. See the table below to find out what your favorite vegetables actually are.

To finish off, here are two of my favourite “vegetable fruit” recipes. Unfortunately, you’ll just have to wait a few more months to try them.

Coarsely chop however many fresh tomatoes you want to eat, and put in a bowl. Mix in coarsely chopped onions and some sliced fresh basil. Pour in enough olive oil and balsamic vinegar to generously coat. Season with salt and pepper and toss. Let sit for 15 minutes. Heap onto garlic toast and savour the flavour of summer!

Steam fresh yellow or green wax beans until tender. Meanwhile, finely chop some onion and sauté with butter till golden over medium heat. Add cream to pan and cook, stirring until thickened. Add paprika, salt and pepper to taste. Pour over cooked beans and toss. Bon appétit!

For starters, plants are not like mammals when it comes to gender. Only about 5-6% of all flowering plant species are dioecious, that is, having separate “males” (i.e. producing only sperm-containing pollen in stamens) and “females” (i.e. producing only eggs in pistils). The most familiar dioecious plants to most people are Manitoba Maples (Acer negundo; left, below), willows (Salix spp.) and marijuana (Cannabis sativa). However, the vast majority of plant species are monoecious, producing both sperm AND eggs in a single plant. This strategy makes sense for organisms that can’t move around to find a mate. When you make both sperm and eggs, your possible number of romantic encounters doubles. Most of the common garden flowers that we love, such as lilies, roses, tulips and orchids, are monoecious.

Some species are cosexual, with both stamens and pistils in the same flower (e.g. the Western Red Lily, Lilium philadelphicum; centre, above). Other species produce separate male and female cones or flowers on different parts of the same plant, or at different times of the year. For example, White Spruce (Picea glauca. Right, above) trees produce male cones at the bottom of the tree and female cones at the top. Alder (Alnus spp.) shrubs typically produce their male flowers first, and then their female flowers afterwards. The separation of pollen- and egg-production in either space or time, helps prevent self-pollination and inbreeding.

But we have only scratched the surface of plant weirdness. Sometimes, flowers will not receive any pollen.  This means that all the energy invested in egg production will go to waste. In the name of efficiency, some species, like sunflowers (Helianthus spp.), self-pollinate by curling parts of their pistils around their stamens. In other species, a process called agamospermy results in the egg maturing into a seed without being pollinated at all. It’s kind of like a virgin birth, with the offspring being genetically identical to the parent plant.

Other species, often those in cold, alpine or arctic climates, don’t even bother producing seeds; they just make tiny clones of themselves called bulbils. This is a kind of asexual reproduction. Once the bulbil is large enough, it detaches, perhaps when a stiff breeze is blowing, and grows into a new plant. That would be like growing a tiny version of yourself on the outside of your belly (like a giant pimple). Then one day it would just fall off and become a new person that looks exactly like you. Native plants like Bulb-bearing Water-hemlock (Cicuta bulbifera) and Viviparous Sheep’s Fescue (Festuca viviparoidea), and house plants like Kalanchoe (Kalanchoe spp.) use this technique to reproduce.

Plants also engage in vegetative reproduction. This is when plant parts, like leaves or stems, that become detached go on to grow roots and become new plants. Many cacti and other succulents, can do this: cactus “pads” (actually swollen stems) that become detached grow into new plants under the right conditions. For humans, this would be like removing a leg, and then having it grow into a clone of yourself. The “parent” would then grow a new leg to replace what was lost, kind of like what the Marvel Cinematic Universe character Deadpool did in the movie sequel (his whole body regrew from his head!).

Plants also engage in vegetative reproduction. This is when plant parts, like leaves or stems, that become detached go on to grow roots and become new plants. Many cacti and other succulents, can do this: cactus “pads” (actually swollen stems) that become detached grow into new plants under the right conditions. For humans, this would be like removing a leg, and then having it grow into a clone of yourself. The “parent” would then grow a new leg to replace what was lost, kind of like what the Marvel Cinematic Universe character Deadpool did in the movie sequel (his whole body regrew from his head!).

Plants have had to evolve some ingenious ways to ensure their reproductive success because they are rooted in one spot. Imagine how much stranger our lives would be if humans reproduced like plants.

References

Freeman, D.C., K.T. Harper, and El L. Charnov. 1980. Sex change in plants: old and new observations and new hypotheses. Oecologia, 47: 222-232.

Freeman, D.C., McArthur, E.D., and K.T. Harper. 1984. The adaptive significance of sexual lability in plants using Atriplex canescens as a principal example. Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden, 71: 265-277.

S. Varga, M.-M. Kyto viita. 2016. Light availability affects sex lability in a gynodioecious plant. American Journal of Botany, 103: 1928-1936.