THE NATURE TRAILS
The McLeod Trail
On May 30, 2007 the Ethnobotanical Trail was re-named and
dedicated to Dianne McLeod, as part of the Garden's Salute
To Our Builders 30th anniversary celebrations. This
trail begins in the garden area beside the Rhododendron Dell and
extends throughout a range of boreal forest micro-habitats to the
waters edge of Oxen Pond. Interpretive signage along this
trail will explain the various uses of native plants by native
people and the early settlers.
The Main Trail extends through a variety of habitats connecting one end of the Garden to the other and also connects all of the remaining 4 trails. This trail is the remains of an old road along which people once lived.
Trail 1 - The Yetman Trail
On May 30, 2007 trail #1 was re-named and dedicated to
Gerry Yetman, as part of the Garden's Salute To Our
Builders 30th anniversary celebrations.
This trail takes you through a beautifully serene climax coniferous
forest of mature balsam fir (Abies balsamea), black and
white spruce (Picea mariana, Picea glauca).
Woodland flowers such as wild lily-of-the-valley (Maianthemum
canadense), goldthread (Coptis groenlandica), bluebead
lily (Clintonia borealis), 
creeping snowberry (Gaultheria
hispidula), one-sided pyrola (Pyrola secunda),
one-flowered wintergreen (Moneses uniflora) and crackerberry
(Cornus canadensis) thrive in the moist, nutrient-rich
soil. This is also the domain of mosses and liverworts which
form blankets over the ground. Lichens such as British
soldiers and old man's beard grow on logs and hang from trees.
In September several species of mushrooms, like poisonous fly
agaric and russula are common. Particularly hard to resist, though
resist you must, are the masses of chanterelles that spring from
the earth in certain years. Ferns such as the cinnamon fern
(Osmunda cinnamomea) with its wonderful dusty-brown
spore
producing fronds, the more delicate lady
fern (Athyrium filix-femina) and the spinulose woodfern
(Dryopteris spinulosa) frame the edge of the trail.
One of the more interesting botanical denizens that you see here is
the Indian pipe (Monotropa uniflora).
Non-chlorophyllous, this ghostly white plant only emerges above
ground in late summer to flower and fruit. Otherwise, it
spends its time underground as rhizomes and roots that absorb the
products of decay. It is consequently termed a
saprophyte. Animals and birds to be seen on the trail include
snowshoe hare, red squirrels, ruffed grouse, blue jays, common
crows, dark-eyed juncos, ruby-crowned kinglets, black-capped and
boreal chickadees which all breed in the spruce forest.
Soon the forest is left behind and you
enter the fen. Finely constructed boardwalks protect the
delicate environment while allowing close access and dry
feet. Straight ahead, across the fen, and atop a tree is the
osprey nesting platform. Osprey have nested in the Garden
since the platform was built in 1987; they successfully raised
young in 1989, 1995-1999. A cover of sedges below renders the
fen meadow-like in appearance. Stunted spruce and larch are
scattered around as are juniper (Juniperus communis), sheep
laurel (Kalmia angustifolia), bog laurel (Kalmia
polifolia), leatherleaf (Chamaedaphne calyculata), marsh
berry (Vaccinium oxycoccus) and northeastern rose (Rosa
nitida). This is also a place of orchids. Three species
of rein-orchids (Platanthera) occur here as does a wonderful
spotted leaf form of Dactyllorhiza and the dragon's mouth
(Arethusa bulbosa). Common too, is the pitcher plant,
chosen by Queen Victoria as Newfoundland's floral emblem. One
of the two insectivorous plants here, the other is the diminutive
sundew.
