Welcome to Assiniboine Forest Plant Life, part of the Assiniboine Forest
Trails web site. For the best viewing and navigation experience, we
recommend use of a PC or tablet rather than a smart phone.
New January 2023: Extensive revisions to the Plant Life web site. There is now an Index (last item in the menu) by Common Name and by Botanical Name, as well as a list of Unlocated Plants. Also, the botanical names and aliases for each plant are being added below the heading for that plant. See the What's New page in Trails for a running log of enhancements.
To view photographs of some of the plants in the forest and to read snippets of further information about some of them, click on any of the plant categories above. Clicking on Trails will take you back to the Trails home page (available on this page only, not on the plant category pages).
This is my personal photo album of plants that I've located, photographed, and identified in the Assiniboine Forest and along the Harte Trail. It's a family album of commonly or uncommonly found species, heroes and villains alike. It's where I can view the end result of my photographic excursions into the forest, a few selected shots for each species that best portray that plant's features and its appearance throughout the seasons.
I'm happy to share this album with those who love the Assiniboine Forest as much as I do, and those who are also interested in identifying flora that they pass as they make their way though the woods and grasslands. The photos of each plant are the best I have available at this time, but I'll upgrade them as I take better shots that record more representative features throughout the seasons.
There are perhaps more than 300 plant species in the Assiniboine Forest. At the date of writing, and to the best of my amateur abilities, I've photographed and identified 199 species in the Assiniboine Forest & Harte Trail, consisting of 146 species from the City of Winnipeg Natural Service Department's Habitat Site Report, plus 53 others which are not on the list. Of my additional identifications, 17 are fungi, lichens, mosses, and liverworts, categories that aren't included in the Habitat Site Report, and 36 could be considered new finds. I also include photos of interesting plants which I haven't yet identified.
There are roughly another 100 other species listed in the Habitat Site Report that I have yet to locate, photograph, or identify.
Click here to display the Habitat Site Report for the Assiniboine Forest. It's a list of 244 species of plants (after duplicate entries are removed), organized by botanical name, and created in 1999 with additions up to 2010. I used it to create a "starter" spreadsheet with which to check off the plants I had found.
No doubt some of my identifications will be wrong, but I plead innocent on the grounds that frequently the similarities between different species and subspecies makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to pinpoint the correct plant. I do find that given time, I tend to catch some of my errors.
The categories under which I classify plants (see menu above) is not quite what you'll find in the botanical text books, but it's one that I find convenient. Many flowering plants for example, are placed in other categories and so will not show up under Wildflowers. Of course, what you regard as a Weed as opposed to a wildflower is up to you, and I take that liberty too.
Forest Floor relates to all small plants that tend to be found underneath the canopy in the forested areas, species that I haven't elsewhere classified as shrubs, weeds, wildflowers, or climbers. It seemed to make sense to do the same with small plants in open areas, ones that I haven't classified as grasses, wildflowers, or weeds. Those are shown under Prairie Floor, not really appropriate wording, but I like it.
Berries can mostly be found under Shrubs & Berries, but some may appear in other pages such as Climbers or Forest Floor. I include all willows under Trees, although in fact some are trees and some are shrubs. Grasses & Such is a catch-all for true grasses, sedges, and rushes. Water-loving plants are shown in Wetland Plants but may also appear in other categories. Likewise, some fungus, moss, and lichen photos are duplicated in the Aspen Bark page, which contains an exploration of the many features and curiosities to be found with a close examination of aspen bark.
The Habitat Site Report lists both native species and those that have been introduced to the Assiniboine Forest. Here we do not differentiate.
This web site is neither comprehensive nor authoritative. I'm a hobbyist, not a botanist. Where I have identified a plant, it will be headed by its common name. If the heading is in Italic, it's a species not listed on the Habitat Site Report. At the end of these pages, I sometimes have an Unidentified heading. Here I include photos of plants for which I don't have enough solid evidence to press charges, although I may have my suspicions. There are many others that have stumped me which are not in this album, usually where the photos aren't good or the plant made a face when I clicked the shutter.
Captions are included only where useful, but those viewing the photos on a computer with a mouse may be able to see a text box that pops up when the mouse pointer is over the image. For the most part, I don't give the forest locations for the plants photographed, because that might take the fun out of your exploration. However, some of my photos are from the section of the Harte Trail beyond the Assiniboine Forest, and these photos are captioned to indicate that.
For further information on my approach to plant identification, click Trails and then go the topic Plant Identification in the Odds & Ends page.
