EARTHQUEST to launch plant hunt 2013

Hello everyone; welcome to the official EARTHQUEST (Canada) for the Environment blog.  This is the forum where we will share updates, announcements and news specific to the EARTHQUEST circle of supporters, friends and affiliates.

In March, 2006 EARTHQUEST initiated the Plants of Ontario Project.  This project enlisted the assistance of 55 volunteers, students and staff of EARTHQUEST (Canada) for the Environment and the EARTHQUEST Biological Field School to build an ACCESS database of all vascular plants (ie. trees, shrubs, wildflowers, grasses, sedges, rushes, ferns and club mosses) which may be found in the Province of Ontario.  This would allow EARTHQUEST to track and rank vascular plants that are not monitored by the Natural Heritage Information Centre (NHIC) in Peterborough, Ontario.  The NHIC only tracks provincially rare and Species at Risk (SAR) plants, but has no idea about the rarity or status of vascular plants at the regional or local level.  Our aim back in 2006 was to tackle this knowledge gap and determine the patterns and trends on rarity levels to get a sense of where the plants are and how rare they are.

In March, 2013, entering the 7th season since the project launch, the database has grown to 88 118 records representing 43 counties, 1299 taxa (including 21 hybrids and sub-species), 16 Ontario SARs protected under the provisions of the Ontario Species at Risk Act (SARA), 18 federally listed SARs protected under the federal SARA, and 84 provincially rare plants.  We are now able to pull enough data from the database to construct master plant species lists for watersheds.  The Grand River Conservation Authority (GRCA) received a preliminary master plant species list of all plants found within their watershed - 637 species in December, 2012.  This year, we hope to generate similiar lists for the Bruce Trail Conservancy and Lower Thames watershed.

With spring only several weeks away we will begin collecting data for the 2013 field season.  If you'd like to contribute please contact EARTHQUEST.  The rules for participation are simple; simply submit the flowering date, location, county and watershed (eg. GRCA).  In order to count, however, we only include 1 flowering plant species per county, per day, so if you saw Red maple flowering in Elgin county on April 24th, 2013 and again on the same day, only 1 of these records will be entered into the database.  If you move over to Middlesex county and see another Red maple flowering then that record will count for that county.  Generally, among the first plants to start flowering in March/April are Skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus feotidus), Pennsylvania bittercress (Cardamine pensylvanica) and Coltsfolt (Tussilago farfara).  Usually, among the earliest provincially rare plants to bloom is Harbinger of spring (Erigenia bulbosa).

Contributing to the database is fun and adds valuable data for mapping regionally and locally rare plant habitats, updating our SAR Plants of Ontario book, and increasing your knowledge of vascular plants.  We usually have a photo identification quiz and you're welcome to share any photos of plants you can't identify with Dave Jolly.

Why not sign up today, or let us know your thoughts?  If you've seen a SAR or rare plant somewhere in Ontario we'd love to hear from you.