The fern with the maiden's hair

Species name: Adiantum aleuticum

Common name: western maidenhair fern

Location: Ontario

Unlike many ferns popular to grow in North America, this one is actually native to most of Canada and Alaska. It is incredibly cold-hardy as far as ferns go, surviving much colder temperatures than any of its ferny relatives. There is another species, A. pedatum (the five-fingered fern), that is also native to North America that is equally cold hardy and was once thought to be part of the same species (they were shown to be different species through DNA sequencing in 1991). It has slightly different fronds that are darker green than this species, and is a bit shorter when full-grown. Both species are deciduous, meaning the fronds are shed during the winter, but a few of their relatives are evergreen species, even in colder climates.

Also unlike many of its ferny relatives, this species' conservation status is listed as "secure" in all areas of its native range. I find this somewhat hard to believe since we're destroying its native habitat at a rather unprecedented rate, but they're the experts so they know what they're talking about. Part of the success of the species is thanks to its attractiveness; this is also an incredibly popular fern to grow as a landscaping plant in gardens. There are some very similar Chinese and Australian species, though, so if you choose to grow this in your garden make sure you're choosing one of the two native species. Because ferns are so sensitive not just to habitat change but also to climate change, they are at greater risk of extinction than any other plant species. When the dinosaurs ruled the earth, ferns were the dominant plant species; the majority of the "trees" that flying dinosaurs would have made their nests in would have been ancient species of ferns! There are still a few "tree ferns" that exist today, but nothing nearly as majestic as a 75-100 foot tall fern tree. They're much smaller at only 6-10 feet at their maximum.

Maidenhair ferns have been used as a medicinal tea plant for hundreds of years by Native North Americans. It is said to help relieve mucous membrane irritation, and so was often consumed to help sore throats and colds. Since we now know that even just drinking warm water will soothe a sore throat, drinking a tea with maidenhair fern leaves should be surprising that it would help a sore throat. Whether it has any actual medicinal value other than the placebo effect has yet to be determined.

Hack-ma-what?

Species name: Larix laricina

Common name: Tamarack, American larch

Location: Ontario

The tamarack, or as I like to call it the "hackmatack" (is that not the coolest name for a plant you've ever heard?!), is native to Canada and is one of the only tree species that is present in every province and territory across the entire country. Tamaracks are so versatile because despite being conifers, they lose their needles during the winter. This decreases what's called "evapotranspiration stress" during the winter (the plant's conflict in the needles between wanting to open stomata, or breathing holes, to let in carbon dioxide and oxygen so it can make sugars and energy and wanting to close stomata to prevent water loss). This might seem like a given: open them during the spring, summer and fall when water is easy to come by via the roots, and keep them closed all winter. Easy peasy! Well, it's often not that simple. In order to maintain needles during the winter, there does have to be some amount of carbon fixation that occurs just to maintain basic metabolic processes. If a tree opts instead to shed needles like a flowering tree would shed its leaves, this problem is eliminated. It also makes for a stunning colour display during the fall months: tamaracks turn a bright yellow.

In the Algonquian language (the Algonquian language has given rise to about 30 different languages and dialects spoken by different groups of Native Americans), the word "tamarack" means "wood used for snowshoes" so I hope you can guess what the major use of tamarack wood is! Snowshoes are now rarely made of wood (there are much more "modern" metal varieties these days; I find them much less attractive than those made out of wood!), so the main use of tamarack trees is in the pulp and paper industry. The wood was also used to make a type of tea that could be consumed to help with aches and pains from arthritis. I doubt the proposed medicinal usage actually works to any degree, or else tamaracks would be staples of the supplement market. I'm guessing it's more the placebo effect than anything else. Tamaracks are also popular in Japan for bonsai.

Dawn Redwood: Critically Endangered?

Species name: Metasequoia glyptostroboides

Common name: Dawn redwood

Location: Ontario

This species of redwood is unique in many ways, only one of which being that it was only recently (well, in the grand scheme of things it's recent) rediscovered in 1949 after thoughts it had gone extinct in the late 1800s. It is native to a very small region in China, and within its native range there are only a few individuals of this species left so it is critically endangered. That being said, it's also an incredibly popular ornamental tree (gaining popularity in North America) so cultivated species of this plant will likely always exist even after the wild members of the population are long gone. Another unique aspect of this tree is that unlike it's close relatives, the Giant Redwood (Sequoiadendron) and the Coastal Redwood (Sequoia), this is a deciduous tree and a conifer at the same time. It produces cones like you would picture from a redwood or even a cedar, but loses its leaves during the fall like an oak or maple tree would. As you can see from the pictures, the leaves are like feathers, and it seems like they all appear overnight after the buds have persisted on the branches for many days or weeks. While you might imagine the debris from this tree would be quite impressive since it can be a huge tree (up to 200 feet in the wild) with many leaves, the leaf-like needles actually decay very quickly. It's certainly not the padded ground cover that you find in pine plantations!

The Dawn redwood is what we refer to as being a "monotypic" species, meaning that it is the only species that is currently alive in the genus. There are an estimated three other species that have once existed in the genus based on evidence from the fossil record. These trees seemed to be abundant in the early Paleocene, between 55-60 million years ago. The changing climate likely led to their demise, which seems to be repeating itself with the last remaining species. The Dawn redwood is also very sensitive to urban pollutants, so living in the city and trying to grow one of these outside is probably a losing proposition (and a good reason why urban encroachment is one of the contributing factors to the status of the last remaining wild population of this species). That being said, this is a popular plant species to turn into a bonsai, so growing it indoors can work well if you have time and patience!

These trees are a source of national pride in China, so much so that it's actually illegal to take branch cuttings from any one of the remaining 5,000 trees left in the wild. Unfortunately, cone collection is not protected in the same way so natural regeneration of these trees has essentially stopped. Once the mature trees in the stand die, the species will be extinct in the wild. The state of North Carolina has attempted to do its part by planting an enormous stand of Dawn redwood trees over three different sites. Their goal is to have 5,000 trees planted in various stages of growth by the year 2035, which is when the nature preserve is slated to open to the public. Hopefully this enormous undertaking will continue to thrive with changing national budget priorities! I would love to go see it someday.

Sticks, sticks, sticks

Species name: Acer saccharum

Common name: Sugar maple

Location: Ontario

So this isn't your typical thoughts when it comes to a maple tree. And this probably isn't the kind of image you want to see when promised that spring is "right around the corner" (aren't we promised that every year at the end of March?!). But it's a fact of life that trees lose their leaves in the fall, overwinter as a bunch of upright sticks, then grow new leaves in the spring. But do all trees do that?

Unfortunately, nothing in Biology ever has a rule for which there are no exceptions. We can say that all trees lose their leaves then regrow them at some point in their life cycle, but that would be just plain false. An important concept to introduce is the difference between evergreen and deciduous trees. Evergreen trees are exactly what they sound like: always green. They never lose their green parts, and they're always biologically "active", even when it seems like all that they're doing is sitting there. In elementary school you learn that conifers are evergreens, and everything else loses their leaves. In reality, this is false. MOST conifers in Canada are evergreens, but there are some clear exceptions like Dawn Redwoods and Larch (and a few others, but those are extremely uncommon in Canada). Deciduous trees are those that lose their leaves in the fall to regrow them in the spring, and are often thought of as being the leafy plants. This is also not entirely true, since there are many tropical leafy trees that are considered evergreens since they never lose their leaves.

Another misconception is that the way the seasons work in Canada is the way they work everywhere. In reality, almost every country in the world has "seasons". Even tropical countries right on the equator that have no clear distinction between spring, summer, fall and winter still have a wet and dry season. In fact, we have the same thing in Canada: winter would be considered our "dry" season since the only form of precipitation (snow) is biologically unavailable to plants. The soil is also too cold to allow for water absorption, so the trees go dormant. Same thing in the tropics: during the dry season, many deciduous trees will lose their leaves and enter dormancy to regrow them during the wet season. There are some plants in the tropics that take this to an extreme, and any time there's a period of drought (anywhere from 7 to 14 days without rain, and it doesn't matter what time of year it is) the tree will shed its leaves and regrow them all after the next rain. A neat example of nutrient cycling in the tropics; nutrient recycling in temperate countries could never happen this quickly, and so if a tree shed its leaves any time it didn't get water for a prolonged period it would never be able to grow them back fast enough and would die.