Interesting Plants of the southeast Avalon
Seasonal Berries: Cloudberry or Bakeapple and Blueberry are the iconic berry plants of Newfoundland. Cloudberries have single orange berries, golden when ripe in mid-July into early August, and can be found in bogs throughout the area. From late August well into September Blueberries are everywhere in the drier areas of the barrens, crowding the old trails and railway tracks.
Raspberries are often found along roadsides or cuttings in August. Cranberries grow in wetter areas and Partridgeberries on upland sites. Both ripen in October.
Wild strawberries sprawl along the coast, but picking their sweet fruits increases the hazard of blackfly bites.
Dewberries, the raspberry’s singular cousin, grow along trails, but most obvious are the bunchberries, locally called crackerberries, because of the noise the seeds make between your teeth. While not considered the tastiest of berries, they can be eaten and made into jams and pies, as can the dark black crowberries, though the crows are welcome to them. Below Coastal Path at Chance Cove lined with bunchberries.
In the scant woods at places like Chance Cove, snowberries run riot under the windbent trees; Champlain compared the texture of their wintergreen-flavoured fruits to that of a banana.
Blackberries are also found in these shadier spots. On a sunny windy day picking berries on the barrens is an experience hard to forget.
Carnivorous Plants: Sundew and Pitcher Plant (Provincial Plant of Newfoundland and Labrador) are found in our area, turning the boggy areas bright red when in flower. These plants each have an interesting way of trapping insects, which provide their sustenance. The tiny Sundew traps its prey in sticky dew-like excretions on at the ends of its hairy leaves. The Pitcher Plant lures insects to drink the sweet liquid at the base of its tubular leaves, whose downward facing hairs prevent their escape.
Rhodoras: In early summer, the white blossoms of Labrador Tea, and the pink clusters of Rhodora, Sheep Laurel and Bog Laurel colour the edges of the marshy heaths. While the leaves of Labrador tea are steeped and drunk, the Laurels are highly poisonous.
Orchids: From July on the orchids spring up in the bogs and woodlands. Lady’s slippers and ladies’ tresses, dragon’s mouth and adder’s mouth, and bog candles, to name only a few, brighten the bogs, as do the swathes of deep blue irises in early summer. Below orchids growing along forest path.
Around the ocean beaches few plants can thrive from the impacts of salt carried by the salt spray.
Two very interesting plants are the red-viened and white flower-topped Scotch Lovage, the key foodplant of the Short-tailed Swallowtail Butterfly and the bizarre-flowered Arnica Ragwort shown below:
