Introduction
Planting the Seeds
Native Agriculture and Plant Use
Canadian Flora
Pioneer Gardening
19th Century Seed Catalogues
Cultivating the Garden
The Cultivators
Reaping the Harvest
Bibliography
Photos by Beth Powning
Other Gardening Sites
Acknowledgements |
Planting the Seeds
Canadian Flora
| Martha Black climbed over the famous Chilkoot Pass to take part in the Yukon gold rush of 1898. She brought her love of gardening and collecting wild flowers with her. As a gifted amateur, she collected and recorded the flowering plants in this first flora of the Yukon. |
 | Black, Martha Louise.
Yukon Wild Flowers.
Dawson: Yukon, 1940. |
| At a time when relatively little was known about the plants of Quebec, frère Marie-Victorin, while convalescing from illnesses that were to plague him most of his life, began collecting and exchanging specimens, reading what material was available, and corresponding with other botanists in Europe and the United States. After years of work and nearly a hundred papers on the subject, his magnificent Flore laurentienne was published in 1935. He was a major intellectual figure in Quebec and played an influential role in the development of the scientific movement there. |
 |
Marie-Victorin, frère.
Flore laurentienne.
Montréal: La Salle, 1935. |
 | In the mid 1960s, F.H. Montgomery, head of botany at the Ontario Agricultural College, saw the need for an up-to-date national flora, something that would help travellers interested in plant life identify the plants they found across the country. He carefully organized 1500 plants, keying them to genera and species. Over 870 were illustrated with line drawings, making it a valuable tool for the amateur and professional alike. |
F.H. Montgomery.
Plants from Sea to Sea.
Toronto: Ryerson, 1966.
|
| These asters are a good example of the 98 line drawings of North American plants and trees included as an addendum to the 18th-century record of a journey to New France. |
 |
Charlevois, Pierre-François de.
Histoire et description générale de la Nouvelle France: avec le Journal historic d'un voyage fait par ordre du Roi ... Tome II.
Paris: Rolin fils, 1744, opposite p. 42. |
|
