St. John River Rare Flora
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Background If you have canoed down the St. John River between St. Francis and Perth Andover, you will have been impressed by the valley’s ever-changing mosaic of floodplain meadows, rocky outcrops, gravel strands and steep banks. A long list of rare plants grows among these diverse shoreline habitats including the elusive and world-famous Furbish’s Lousewort.
Furbish's Lousewort The Lousewort seems to appreciate the charms of the Upper St. John River and is found nowhere else in the world! Since 2001, The Nature Trust of New Brunswick has been working to better understand where the Lousewort and other rare plants are found and what threats to their survival exist.
In 2001 and 2002, the Nature Trust worked in partnership with the Atlantic Canada Conservation Data Centre to carry out the first comprehensive and systematic rare plant survey of the upper St. John River from its northern limits in New Brunswick (St. Francis River) 170 kms downstream to Perth Andover. At the end of two years of scouring the shoreline, project botanists had located 68 plant species of conservation significance, (including the endangered Furbish’s Lousewort) and many occurrences of rare plant communities. The Nature Trust contacted landowners with rare plants and rare plant communities on their properties to encourage and support stewardship practices. As a result, 15 botanically significant sites are now under voluntary private landowner stewardship agreements.
Habitat Quality In 2004, The Nature Trust set out to document the character and volume of landuse threats to shoreline plant species between Grand Falls and Perth Andover. The Trust found that, while the majority of the shoreline remains in exemplary quality, landuse activities such as roads, trails, gravel pits, fields and lawns have compromised the ecological integrity of 42% of the shoreline. Without proper consideration, development activities can cause great damage to rare plants. Luckily, conserving shoreline habitat is quite straightforward. Common-sense measures, like keeping traffic to designated trails, maintaining tree buffers along the water and not dumping garbage or fill over the bank, go a long way in ensuring that these unique plants are enjoyed by future generations. For more information on the unique flora of the upper St. John River, contact the Nature Trust at (506) 457-2398 or naturetrust@ntnb.org The Nature Trust gratefully acknowledges the support of the following sponsors for it’s work along the upper St John River: Shell Environmental Fund, Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund, The George Cedric Metcalf Foundation, The New Brunswick Environmental Trust Fund, The New Brunswick Wildlife Trust Fund, The McCain Foundation, the World Wildlife Fund and Environment Canada, the Environmental Damages Fund, and the Government of Canada Habitat Stewardship Program for Species at Risk. Saint John River www links:
Saint John River Society
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