Category: Botany

  • Trailing Arbutus

    The trailing arbutus is a lovely spring flower – blooming in April in New Brunswick. The leaves are tough and leathery and can be found spreading out on the ground just as the snow melts. It is a perennial shrub in the Heath family, Ericaceae. It is found in acidic sandy or rocky soils, in…

  • Backyard Sugaring

    During our second year of the pandemic, we began tapping our backyard maple trees. Baby-blue pails, taps and spigots, special filters and a Brix refractometer were added to our household inventory. We were new to the production of maple syrup but we learned by trial and error and with some help from the internet. By…

  • Beaked Hazelnut

    Beaked Hazelnut; Noisetier à long bec. Corylus cornuta; Family: Betulaceae In my back yard, there is a beaked hazelnut shrub. It was the unique-shaped nuts on the ground that caught my attention to this shrub. It is the only native shrub in New Brunswick that has an edible nut, called a filbert. It is tolerant…