Blogs Archives - Page 24 of 61

When the Ukrainian Canadian Legion Branch 141 building closed on Selkirk Avenue at the end of March 2022, Vladimir Putin’s military invasion of Ukraine was a month old. I visited the Legion building and was shown the flag of Branch 141, and I was struck by the power of the symbols, given the current conflict.

Though this flag has its origins among Canadian veterans from the Second World War, history has come around to give it new symbolic power.

The Ukrainian Canadian Veteran’s flag. The top half of the flag is light blue, and the bottom half is yellow. In the centre is a dark green maple leaf with a gold symbol on it – the Tryzub, or Ukrainian “trident” symbol. In yellow thread on the upper half of the flag is stitched, “Ukrainian Canaidna Veterans”. In light blue thread on the lower half of the flag is stitched, “Br. 141 / Royal Canadian Legion”. The flag has a gold fringe around the edges.

Ukrainian Canadian Veterans Branch 141 flag, likely designed in the late 1940s.

The flag includes the Ukrainian flag colours, with light blue above, and yellow below. In the centre is a dark green, organic maple leaf, and within this lies the now famous Tryzub, or Ukrainian “trident” symbol. A green maple leaf might be surprising, but today’s abstracted red maple leaf on the modern Canadian flag was only adopted in 1965, after the Branch 141 flag was created. The organic maple leaf was first adopted by Lower Canada in the 1830s, and has been associated with the Canadian military since 1860.

The golden Tryzub currently used as a symbol of Ukrainian independence has a much deeper history. It is based on symbols over 1000 years old that appeared on coins minted for Volodymyr the Great of Kyiv in 980 CE. The Tryzub was adapted for use in the coat of arms of the Ukrainian National Republic in 1918, after the fall of the Russian Empire during the First World War. When Bolshevik forces took over the country in 1920, the Tryzub was replaced by Soviet symbology, most notably the hammer and sickle. The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic existed from 1920 until 1991.

Close-up photograph of a dark blue book cover with Urkanion text in dark-coloured lettering. The Tryzub, or Ukrainian “trident” symbol is in the lower middle of the cover.

The Tryzub is seen here on the cover of a Ukrainian language phrasebook published in Winnipeg in 1931.

The publisher was Frank Dojacek, a Czeck immigrant to Winnipeg who started the Ruthenian Booksellers and Winnipeg Music Supply store on Main Street in the 1910s. He supplied products to the large Eastern European population in Manitoba, and knew seven languages. H9-7-23

After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine once again declared its independence, and the Tryzub was instituted as part of the “small coat of arms” in 1992. It has continued as a symbol of independence for 30 years.

Today, during the war between Ukraine and Russia, the Tryzub is recognized by many as a symbol of Ukrainian resistance to aggression and invasion. Seeing it joined with the maple leaf on the Ukrainian Canadian Veterans flag suggests new symbolic associations, such as the current support of Ukraine’s war efforts by the Canadian government, as well as Ukrainian Canadian heritage in Canada.

It’s important to note that national symbols often get hijacked by nationalist groups, far right elements, and other extremists for their own purposes. Symbols are open to interpretation, but at the same time act as a focus for emotions.

Dr. Roland Sawatzky

Curator of History

Roland Sawatzky joined The Manitoba Museum in 2011. He received his B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Winnipeg, M.A. in Anthropology from the University of South Carolina, and Ph.D. in Archaeology…

Meet Dr. Roland Sawatzky

Shooting stars streaking across a clear night sky.

August brings with it hot summer days, earlier sunsets, and the annual Perseid meteor shower. Here’s how you can get the best view of the shooting stars this season.

TL;DR: Best views for Manitobans will occur between 3 am and 5 am on the morning of Saturday, August 13, 2022, or the mornings immediately before or after that date. Go somewhere where you can see the stars, face east, and watch the sky. Don’t look at your phone or you will ruin the night vision you need to see them. If it’s cloudy, the morning before or after will still be pretty good. Expect to see a meteor every few minutes. If you’re lucky you might see more.

The Perseid meteor shower is the best-known, if not the best, meteor shower of the year, and August is a reasonable month to spend some time under the stars. On good years you can expect a meteor every minute or so. 2022 isn’t a “good year,” though, because the nearly-Full Moon will light up the sky and make it hard to see the fainter meteors. But it’s still worth getting out for, and the sky has a lot of other sights to see while you’re under the stars.

What’s Happening?

So, some basics first: a meteor is a glowing trail of light that shoots across the sky and disappears in the blink of an eye. Some are faint, while others can be so bright they light up the ground like the flash from a camera. They are caused by tiny pieces of dust floating out in space. When the dust hits the Earth, Earth’s upper atmosphere slows it down very quickly. At heights of 50km or more, all of that speed energy gets turned into heat energy, and the piece of dust vaporizes. The excess heat causes the air around the dust to glow, and we see that glow from the ground as a meteor. (Some people call them “falling stars” or “shooting stars”, but they’re not related to stars at all.)

On any given night of the year, if you watched the sky for an hour continuously you’d see about half a dozen meteors on average. (They’re much more common than people think!) But on certain nights of the year, the Earth crashes through a cloud of dust – like an interplanetary dust bunny – and we see more meteors than usual. That’s a meteor shower.

These dust bunnies are left behind by comets that orbit the sun. A comet is a small body of ice and dust only a few kilometers across. There are millions of them, but most stay out at the fringes of the solar system and are invisible. When one gets nudged in towards the sun, it can warm up and melt, and the comet forms its characteristic tail. After the comet loops around the Sun it re-freezes, becoming invisible once again until its next return. The orbital path of the comet becomes very dusty from repeated passages of the comet. If the Earth’s orbit happens to intersect the comet’s orbit, we will hit that dusty patch at the same time every year.

Meteor activity from the Perseids actually begins around the end of July, but because the edges of the comet’s path aren’t as dusty as the middle, we don’t see very many Perseids until a few days before the peak. This year the peak occurs on the 12 of August, but there will be decent activity from the 10 through the 14 or so.

There’s a big, “BUT” on when the peak activity is for your location, though. Just because the earth is in the dustiest part of the comet’s path doesn’t mean you can see meteors then – it might be daytime for you, or you might be on the far side of the earth from the direction the earth is moving. So, the best time to watch is between about 3 am and 5 am on the mornings closest to the peak. Due to a variety of factors we won’t get into here, you’ll almost always see the most meteors from a single location in the pre-dawn hours.

How to See the Perseids

Like most astronomical events, a meteor shower is best seen away from the lights of the city where you can get an unobstructed view of the stars. Unlike most astronomical events, no special equipment is required – the most complicated item you’ll need is a reclining lawn chair or a blanket.

First, watch the weather. Meteors happen above the clouds, so if it’s cloudy we can’t see them. You want a clear forecast in the critical 3 am to 5 am period.

Second, get out of the city. Street lights make it hard to see stars, and this is even more true for meteors which flash by in a second or two. You don’t have to go far, but even 15 minutes outside of the city in an area without any big streetlights will quadruple your meteor count at least.

Third, get comfy and be patient. Meteors can occur anywhere in the sky, so you want to watch as much sky as possible. A reclining lawn chair or blanket lets you fill your view with sky instead of ground. And watch the sky continuously. By the time someone says, “there’s one!” you have already missed it. Keep your eyes on the sky. Don’t use binoculars or a telescope, since those only show a part of the sky at once – you want the wide field of view provided by the factory-installed optical detectors you came with.

In the age of mobile devices, this advice is even more critical. It takes a good five minutes for your eyes to go from “daytime” mode to “night vision” mode, but it only takes a second of bright light to ruin your night vision and require another five minutes to switch back. every one second you look at your screen means you’ll miss at least 5 minutes’ worth of meteors.

Shooting a Shooting Star

You can take pictures of the sky with any camera, even the one in your mobile device – if you know how. The typical camera is designed for family pictures at the beach, not stars, so find out how to make your camera work well. Turn your flash off (it won’t help, and will ruin the night vision of everyone else around you), and set the camera for “night mode” or long exposure. There are also dedicated apps for taking star pictures you can find on your device’s app store. Point-and-shoot cameras often let you set the camera to “bulb” (manual) or take exposures up to 30 seconds. A DSLR or mirrorless camera will take amazing star pictures, but takes practice to use.

Point the camera at an area of sky, set it on the ground or use a tripod, and press the button. You’ll get a picture of the stars at least, and if you’re lucky, a meteor will happen in that part of the sky while you’re taking the picture. If not… just try again. And again. For every meteor image you see online, that photographer has hundreds of no-meteor images that still show the constellations, Milky Way, satellites, or Northern Lights. Still cool, even without the meteor.

If you get any good pictures this meteor shower, I’d love to see them! Send them to Space@ManitobaMuseum.ca and we’ll show the best ones on our Dome@Home show.

Scott Young

Planetarium Astronomer

Scott is the Planetarium Astronomer at the Manitoba Museum, developing astronomy and science programs. He has been an informal science educator for thirty years, working in the planetarium and science centre field both at The Manitoba Museum and also at the Alice G. Wallace Planetarium in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. Scott is an active amateur astronomer and a past-President of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.

Manitoba Stories: In the Sky

Astronomy

Thursday September 4, 2025

By Tamika Reid, Volunteer Researcher, and Roland Sawatzky, Curator of History, Manitoba Museum

Churchill, Manitoba is well known for its scenic arctic landscape, polar bears, and vibrant northern lights, but did you know that Churchill was once home to the most active rocket range in Canada?

While the Churchill Rocket Range was in regular operation, between 1957 and 1985, Churchill hosted an international array of scientists, technicians, students, contractors, and military personnel. Through their pioneering studies, Manitoba has a permanent place in the history of early rocket development, and research into the mysteries of the upper atmosphere and aurora borealis. This work enriched humanity’s understanding of the thin layer surrounding our fragile planet.

Ken Pilon worked at the Churchill Rocket Range in the early 1980s as a meteorologist, supporting winter launches by providing crucial wind and temperature information. The northern climate made blizzards and high surface wind speeds a concern for launch trajectory. Pilon worked with a team of up to 60 people. “The hours and working conditions were extreme at times, but I never heard a single complaint from any of them,” said Pilon.

An Aerobee rocket is launched in the darkness of winter, in February 1981. The glare of the fuel combustion casts stark shadows among the surrounding trees. Photo by Ken Pilon.

A two-stage rocket is launched into the Aurora. Both the first stage booster and the second-stage rocket ignition are visible. Photo by Ken Pilon.

The Churchill Rocket Range, 1975. Photo by Ron Estler.

A long plume of smoke rising straight up from the ground to high in a cloudy sky where a rocket launches upwards. On the ground, a pointy building surrounded by evergreen trees on a snowy landscape.

A recent episode of Dome@Home, a bi-weekly virtual program hosted by Planetarium Astronomer, Scott Young, featured Pilon’s artifacts and images. In response, a viewer from Colorado, Dr. Ron Estler, contacted the Museum and shared his experience as a graduate student at the Churchill Rocket Range, along with more photographs.

For six weeks in 1975, Estler was part of an Aerobee 150 rocket launch funded by NASA, through John Hopkins University. Studying Chemical Physics, Estler was tasked with overseeing electron spectrometers to be launched with the Aerobee, for analyzing the energy of electrons.

Having visited Churchill last March for the first time since working there as a student, Estler is already planning another trip north. On the way, he plans to visit the Manitoba Museum. “It will remind me that I played a very small role in something much bigger and fundamentally important to the knowledge of our own planet,” said Estler.

The Manitoba Museum is planning a future exhibit on the Churchill Rocket Range to highlight stories like these, and the role of the Rocket Range in space and science research. You can see a Black Brant V, a type of rocket also used at the Churchill Rocket Range, in the Science Gallery at the Manitoba Museum.

Dr. Roland Sawatzky

Curator of History

Meet Dr. Roland Sawatzky

A museum staff member smiles up at the camera. On a table in front of them is laid a grey wolf pelt, lined inner side facing up.

Post by Marc Formosa, former Collections Technician of Natural History

A current and ongoing problem for museums is collection storage space. Maximizing space for expanding collections requires Tetris-like problem solving. We are always looking for ways to make the most of the space we have, while improving the long-term preservation of the objects in the collection.

In the spring of 2021, I had the chance to virtually attend the joint American Institution for Conservation (AIC) and The Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC) conference. A presentation by Laura Abraczinkas and Barbara Lundrigan titled “Storage Improvements for Tanned Mammal Skins at the Michigan State University Museum” covered folding techniques for large mammal skins to reduce the space they take up, while also discussing how to protect parts of the skin like the paws and head from potential damage while folded. The information in this presentation inspired a rehousing project for polar bear, grizzly, cougar, grey wolf, and leopard skins in the zoology collection.

Most of the skins that were rehoused as part of this project were attached to a felt fabric backing. This is typically done if a skin is going to be used as a rug. The head is stretched around an armature (made from a variety of materials including wood, foam, and plaster) to maintain a semi-life like position, but it also makes the head quite heavy. The mouth and teeth are created by the taxidermist and are not part of the original mammal.

Marc with the grey wolf skin getting it ready for rehousing. Image: © Manitoba Museum

For each mammal, I started by creating custom mittens for their paws out of Tyvek – a lightweight and durable nonwoven material that is resistant to water and abrasion, and has good aging properties. I used a sewing machine, for the first time, and stitched the Tyvek together with cotton thread so each mitten fit snug around each paw. (Pictured below, left)

The folding method can be simply described as a ‘bear’ hugging itself. Every fold is padded out with volara, a smooth closed-celled polyethylene foam, to add support and prevent creases forming in the skin. Finally, the head sits on top of the folded skin, again padded out with volara. (Pictured below, right)

The stitched Tyvek mittens fit snuggly on each paw. Image: © Manitoba Museum

Cougar skin folded and padded with volara supports inside a coroplast box. Image: © Manitoba Museum

For the cougar and leopard heads, custom pads were created for each head to sit on away from the body in order to alleviate stress and prevent the skin from creasing on the neck where the head armature meets the skin. (Pictured below, left)

The skins were individually wrapped in polyethylene sheets as an additional barrier from dust accumulation and insects. Custom boxes were built out of coroplast which allow for the skins to be more easily handled as they move in and out of their new home in the collections storage vault (pictured below, right). Overall, this rehousing project improved the preservation of the skins and their storage method. It freed up space, but free space does not remain long in museum collections storage spaces.

The cougar’s head is supported with a soft Tyvek-covered chin pillow. Image: © Manitoba Museum

The rehoused large mammal skins are safely stored in cabinets inside the collections storage vault. Image: © Manitoba Museum

Museum Stories: Collections & Conservation

Collections & Conservation

Tuesday May 27, 2025

Meet Me at the Bug Light

Spring has finally arrived on the prairies! Trees are leafing out, flowers are in bloom, days are getting hotter, and, of course, the insects are back! They’re flying, swimming, and crawling around, playing important ecosystem roles that make…

Collections & Conservation

Thursday April 24, 2025

Tackling Dirty Data One Field at a Time

One prevailing comment I hear about my job, whether in person or via social media, is “your job sounds so cool!” And you know what? It is. But I’m about to reveal the dark underbelly of my job…

Collections & Conservation

Tuesday February 11, 2025

A Sticky Situation

Tape might seem like a good option when it comes to quick repairs of torn papers or fast mounting of photographs in an album, however, they age badly …

By Dr. Graham Young
Past Curator of Geology and Paleontology

When you hear the word “fossil”, you probably think of giant dinosaurs, or perhaps marine reptiles such as Morden’s “Bruce”, but fossils actually include all evidence of past life. Fossils may be the remains of plants or animals, such as leaves or bones, and they also can be tracks or traces made by animals. Fossils tell us about the evolution of life, the age of rocks, and the environments of the distant past.

For many Manitobans, the most familiar fossils are those in our beautiful limestones. On almost any block in Winnipeg you can see Tyndall Stone walls packed with fossils! Our limestones document the rise and fall of a series of warm, salty inland seas. Rocks from the Ordovician, Silurian, and Devonian periods of geological time, about 450 to 380 million years old, hold varied remains: corals, brachiopods (lamp shells), cephalopods (relatives of squids), trilobites (relatives of crustaceans), and other groups. These can be seen near Manitoba’s Great Lakes, in the Grand Rapids Uplands, and across the Hudson Bay Lowland.

The Ordovician seafloor diorama depicts sea life in the Winnipeg area about 450 million years ago. Manitoba is a big place, a bit bigger than France, and much of it is still poorly known. Fossil-rich rocks occur in many parts of Manitoba, and new discoveries are made every year, by both professional and amateur paleontologists.

Part of the skull of a Devonian age fossil fish (about 390 million years old), as it was in the field (left) and after preparation at the Manitoba Museum (right). (MM-V-3184)

Manitoba Museum staff collecting fossils from a site near Churchill that has yielded some of the world’s oldest horseshoe crabs.

Anyone searching for fossils should know that Manitoba’s heritage laws protect fossils and archaeological artifacts. If you plan to do serious collecting, you should apply for a provincial Heritage Permit. If you find a significant fossil in bedrock, and you do not have a permit, please consider taking a photo, recording location information (such as latitude and longitude), and sharing that information with the Manitoba Museum or the Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre, or with Manitoba Historic Resources.

To walk across private land to look for fossils, ask permission from the landowner. Fossil hunters should also take basic precautions – tell others where you are going, wear appropriate clothing, and carry water and food.

Dr. Graham Young, who has worked at the Manitoba Museum since 1993, recently received a significant honour. The trilobite species Glossopleura youngi, newly discovered in rocks in the Northwest Territories, was named for Dr. Young in a scientific publication by former student Neal Handkamer.

Discover more about fossils from Manitoba and beyond in the Museum Galleries and at Ultimate Dinosaurs! Open daily from 11 am to 5 pm until September 5, 2022.

The head and tail of a large dinosaur curling around the edge of the frame onto a black background. Text reads,

After the Second World War, hundreds of branches of the Royal Canadian Legion were established across Canada where veterans of the war could gather and socialize. These branches became important community hubs of activity, from wedding socials to charitable fundraising, to having a beer with a buddy.

The Ukrainian Canadian Veterans Branch 141 sold its building on Selkirk Avenue this last March, and though the Branch lives on, the building and its 70 years of social activity is history. I was able to visit the Legion branch as it was closing, and Ron Wachniak was kind enough to show me around and offer a few items for the Manitoba Museum to preserve and exhibit.

A framed black and white photograph of a brick building exterior with a sign reading, “Ukrainian Canadian Veterans / Canadian Legion B.E.S.L.”. Written on the frame surrounding the photo, writing reads, “Ukrainian Canadian Veterans / Branch 141 / Royal Canadian Legion / Our First Home / 608-610 Selkirk Avenue / 1948”.

The first Ukrainian Canadian Veterans building, on Selkirk Avenue.

This served as the home of the Legion until the 1970s, when the new building at 618 Selkirk Avenue was built.

A framed black and white photograph showing a group of uniformed men standing alongside neatly lined up empty wheelchairs. Written on the frame surrounding the photo, writing reads, “Legion - Mark Ten / Wheelchair Presentation April 20, 1975 at Branch 141 Royal Canadian Legion.” Written along the bottoms are the names of those pictured including S. Zloty, President Branch 141.

Branch 141 engaged in numerous fundraisers to provide funds and equipment to hospitals and veterans in need. Here the Legion presents 40 brand new wheelchairs.

A black and white photograph showing seven women in dark Women’s Auxillary uniforms standing beside a woman in a white nurse’s uniform around a vintage television set placed on a small desk.

The Ladies Auxiliary to Ukrainian Canadian Veterans, Branch 141, presents a portable TV to patients at Deer Lodge in 1969.

Fundraising was an important part of Legion life for everyone involved.

Dr. Roland Sawatzky

Curator of History

Meet Dr. Roland Sawatzky

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.

View of a prairie landscape with a wide variety of grasses and wildflowers growing.

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

A display case in the Manitoba Museum displaying large root systems of three different grasses.

What’s really under the ground?

To help people understand the natural state of a prairie grassland, the Manitoba Museum created an exhibit called “Anchoring the Earth” in the new Prairies Gallery. This exhibit shows the root systems of native plants. Some roots are shallow, like lawn grasses, but others are deep (over 4-m!). June Grass (Koeleria macrantha) grows early in the spring, then goes dormant. Other species grow mostly at the height of summer, like Big Bluestem (Andropogon gerardi). In addition to the grasses, there are also taprooted plants like White Prairie-clover (Dalea candida). Every possible habitat or “niche” in the ecosystem is exploited by one species or another, the complete opposite of a lawn.

One of the new exhibits at the Manitoba Museum shows what native prairie ecosystems look like under the ground. © Ian McCausland

Hand-drawn illustration of a False dandelion, a plant with long green leaves, and fluffy yellow flower heads.

The weed you can eat

Dandelions are native to Eurasia but were introduced to the Americas. They have taproots, which grow deeper than the shallow roots of turf grasses. Dandelions exploit the nutrients and water deeper in the soil, just like the native False Dandelion (Agoseris glauca). Far from being a useless weed though, you can eat all parts of a dandelion. I’ve eaten dandelion greens in spring, made fritters with the flowers, and roasted the roots to make tea and bake a cake (when the roots are ground up, the powder is similar to cocoa). Just 100 g of raw dandelion leaves have 64% of your daily required vitamin A, 42% of your vitamin C and a whopping 741% of your vitamin K. Sometimes when life gives you lemons, you just need to make lemonade!

False Dandelion (Agoseris glauca) is a native plant with deep taproots similar to the non-native dandelion. © Manitoba Museum, H9-23-260

Lawn Origins

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.

Early blue violet (Viola adunca) is a short, native violet that can add biodiversity to your lawn. © Manitoba Museum

White clover (Trifolium repens) may be considered a weed by many lawn purists, but it was once a staple in lawn seed mixes, as clover raises the nitrogen level. © Wikimedia Commons

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?

Dr. Diana Bizecki Robson

Curator of Botany

Dr. Bizecki Robson obtained a Master’s Degree in Plant Ecology at the University of Saskatchewan studying rare plants of the mixed grass prairies. After working as an environmental consultant and sessional lecturer…

Meet Dr. Bizecki Robson

Museum Stories: Botany

Botany

Wednesday September 25, 2024

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…

Botany

Monday December 4, 2023

Roots, Shoots, Flowers, & Fruits: The Anatomy of a Gingerbread Cookie

December is the time of year when people tend to eat desserts with lots of spices in them, including…

Botany

Monday April 3, 2023

The Fungus Among Us

Fungi grow just about everywhere and yet we are usually ignorant of their presence until they produce mushrooms in our lawns…

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.

Close-up photograph looking down on a small, white, five-petaled flower. White Avens.

To this day, botanists are still finding plants that they did not know grew in Manitoba, like White Avens (Geum canadense).

New to Science

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.

Two unfolded pieces of paper each containing a moss sample (one dark-coloured, one green on small chips of wood), and a typed sheet with specimen details.

This recently acquired collection of mosses, contains specimens of several species that scientists did not know grew in Manitoba.

Found in House

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.

A tan-coloured specimen attached to a sheet of paper, with specimen details in the bottom right corner. Deepest in the corner, details are handwritten, but above that is an added typed note haa been taped on the sheet with the updated species information. A small map of Manitoba is in the bottom left corner. Hickey’s Club-moss.

This specimen, collected in 1954, was recently determined to be a newly described species, Hickey’s Club-moss (Lycopodium hickeyi).

Close-up photograph of a cluster of small, yellow flowers growing from the same stem. Evening Primrose.

Image caption: Evening-primrose (Oenothera) species are hard to tell apart, even for professional botanists.

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).

Why is Manitoba a Botanical Black Hole?

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.

Photograph looking along the dense upper shoreline of a lake on a sunny day. Trees and bushes are green with leaves, with large rocks interspersedly visible.

Indigenous Contributions

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.

Five white water-lily flowers grow out from a cluster of lily-pads on the water’s surface.

A new species of water-lily (Nymphaea loriana) was located and documented thanks to Indigenous guides from Cross Lake First Nation.

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.

Dr. Diana Bizecki Robson

Curator of Botany

Meet Dr. Bizecki Robson

Museum Stories: Botany

Botany

Wednesday September 25, 2024

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…

Botany

Monday December 4, 2023

Roots, Shoots, Flowers, & Fruits: The Anatomy of a Gingerbread Cookie

December is the time of year when people tend to eat desserts with lots of spices in them, including…

Botany

Monday April 3, 2023

The Fungus Among Us

Fungi grow just about everywhere and yet we are usually ignorant of their presence until they produce mushrooms in our lawns…

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.

First Plants

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.

Tree ferns, like this one at the Montreal Botanical Garden, were common when dinosaurs still existed. © Manitoba Museum

The tiny Prickly Tree Club-moss (Lycopodium dendroideum), which lives on Manitoba’s forest floors, is one of the few surviving club-moss species. © Manitoba Museum

Close up on the branch of a Modern Maidenhair tree with leathery green fan-shaped leaves partially concealing a cluster of round green seeds.

Ancient Seeds

Seed plants evolved in the Late Devonian (416-359 mya), eventually becoming the dominant vegetation by the Early Cretaceous (145-100 mya). A seed consists of a plant embryo, a source of food, and a protective coat. This adaptation helped seed plants, like conifers, gingkos and cycads, out-compete the spore-producing plants, particularly in drier habitats.

Modern Maidenhair trees (Ginkgo biloba) are considered “living fossils” because they look almost exactly like Jurassic fossils of ginkgos. From Wikimedia Commons.

Close-up on the centre of a fern with an oblong-shaped red-brown cone growing out from the centre point.

First Flowers

Flowering plants similar to modern magnolias, dogwoods, and oaks, appeared rather abruptly in the fossil record, about 90 mya (Late Cretaceous). Decades of searching by palaeobotanists for the first flowers has finally borne fruit (pardon the pun). The most recent evidence of an undisputed flowering plant is a fossil named Florigerminis jurassica (Cui et al., 2021). The discovery of this fossilized flower bud and fruit, indicates that flowering plants evolved nearly 75 million years earlier than originally thought, in the Jurassic Period 164 mya (Cui et al., 2021).

Dinosaurs would have eaten cycads, plants that produce cones in the very centre of their trunk. This specimen was at the Montreal Botanical Garden. © Manitoba Museum

A fossilized leaf in a slab of reddish-orange stone.

Floral Rarity

Part of the reason why flower fossils are so rare is because these structures are very delicate. Flowers likely decompose long before they can fossilize. In fact, some species that palaeontologists think were cone-bearing, may have actually borne flowers, since we only have fossils of their leaves. Another reason flowers did not often fossilize, is that Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous flowering plants may have grown in relatively dry habitats, where fossilization rarely occurs.

A bumblebee perched on a cluster of white-green tubular-shaped flowers.

Changing Ecosystems

It wasn’t just the animal world that changed when that giant asteroid hit the earth 66 mya; it was the plant world, too. In North America, about 50% of the plant species (mainly the slower-growing, cone-bearing plants) went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous period (Condamine et al. 2020). Afterwards, the evolution of flowering plants was rapid, thanks in part to coevolution with pollinating insects like bees (Benton et al. 2022). With their quick growth, drought tolerance, and long-lived seeds, flowering plants were better able to colonize the devastated earth than cone-and spore-bearing species (Benton et al. 2022, Condamine et al. 2022). Thus, the evolution of flowering plants parallels that of mammals.

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.

A mural depicting ancient vegetation including trees, ferns, and fungi.

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.

Dr. Diana Bizecki Robson

Curator of Botany

Meet Dr. Bizecki Robson

Museum Stories: Botany

Botany

Wednesday September 25, 2024

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…

Botany

Monday December 4, 2023

Roots, Shoots, Flowers, & Fruits: The Anatomy of a Gingerbread Cookie

December is the time of year when people tend to eat desserts with lots of spices in them, including…

Botany

Monday April 3, 2023

The Fungus Among Us

Fungi grow just about everywhere and yet we are usually ignorant of their presence until they produce mushrooms in our lawns…

One of our most popular exhibits at the Museum is the “Winnipeg 1920 Cityscape”. Built in 1974, it used to be called the “Urban Gallery.” It’s the immersive experience of this gallery that makes it so popular. People love to walk through the buildings, turn corners, step through doors, discovering bits of history as they explore.

Black and white video footage of traffic on a street in the early 1900s projected onto a faux building exterior. The footage is labelled "Portage Avenue".

But in my time at the museum I noticed a few issues with this family favourite. The biggest problem? Very few people knew what they were visiting! People called it the “old town,” “the prairie village,” and even “the mining town!” In fact, it was always meant to represent Winnipeg in the year 1920. Through the years, our Learning and Engagement team has done a great job of interpreting the space for school groups, but there was very little interpretation for the casual visitor. Many of the buildings were based on fictional places, so we need to update the gallery so they are based on real Winnipeg businesses and institutions (and people). Finally, the gallery kind of felt like a ghost town. But Winnipeg in 1920 was Canada’s third largest city, bustling with people of many backgrounds!

We had work to do, to educate visitors while enlivening the space.

New projections in Winnipeg 1920 highlight the busy streets of Canada’s third largest city.

This year, you’ll notice some changes. Eleven all new, realistic mannequins inhabit the space, and more are on the way. Audio dialogues can be heard in three of the rooms, with people discussing the Strike of 1919 and the upcoming provincial vote of June 1920, in which some women could vote for the first time. Panels will provide historical context for people and businesses. Video projections on various buildings bring the place to life with film and slides of Winnipeg from the period. Wait till you experience driving down Portage Avenue in 1920! You’ll be thankful for today’s traffic laws.