The Flora of Star Lake
Introduction
(Last Update: Apr. 26, 2023 - 108 species listed so far.)
The flora of the southeast corner of Manitoba, including Whiteshell Provincial Park, is very diverse. Officially, Star Lake lies within the "Lake of the Woods" district of the "Boreal Shield Ecoregion". This district has the highest biodiversity found in Manitoba as it is where several diverse ecoregions come together. There are plants from the Boreal Forest, the Great Lakes/St Lawrence Forest, the Eastern Deciduous Forest and the Tall Grass Prairies. Overall, the biodiversity of this region is poorly documented.
(I've found a number of plant species around Star Lake that have not previously been recorded in Manitoba and I'm sure there's more to find! Doug C.)
Flora of Star Lake
Plant species are presented here by their general types:
Herbaceous Plants (wildflowers, herbs, grasses, etc.)
Aquatic Plants (emergents, floating plants, pond-weeds, etc.)
Woody Plants (trees, shrubs and vines, etc.)
The goal, at first, is to present the most common plants found around Star Lake. These will be grouped by their families. For example: there are lots of different kinds of violets, so these will be listed together.
Alien invasive plants (plants that aren't supposed to be here and are damaging to natural environments) are labeled with this image:
Common and Scientific Names - the common names of some of the plants listed here may vary from other sources, I've tried to find the best/most current name for each. The scientific names (Genus_Species) should be consistent with other resources, but there even may be some differences/disagreements for some species.
Other resources for plant identification:
To find other online resources or apps for your phone to help identify plants just Google: plant identification. There are too many options out there for me to review and list them all. Android phones will have Google Lens app (usually preloaded) and I've found this to be a very good tool for IDs of plants and all sorts of things. (Just remember: none of the available web IDs or apps are perfect! Check your IDs with other sources.)
Some good books? Again there are far too many to list here. But for the Star Lake and Whiteshell region check to make sure the books cover this region of Manitoba as well as northwestern Ontario and northern Minnesota. There is no one "best book" for the flora of this region.
I'd also encourage folks to make use of the Go Wild project run by Manitoba Sustainable Development.
Visit these links: Go Wild Manitoba | iNaturalist
You can add to the ongoing gathering of data on Manitoba's biodiversity by uploading your records of plants or animals, and you can ask for help identifying things or to confirm your ID.
Sorry, but I'm not going to include fungi at this point. That's a group that I don't have enough expertise with to be certain of identifying them properly. And given that some folks like to collect and eat them I don't want to be responsible for wrong IDs!
The annoying ad below just lets me keep track of how much traffic this page receives.
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