News release

Nova Scotia Plants Book Available as Free Download

Communities, Culture and Heritage (Jan. 2011 - Aug. 2021)

The Nova Scotia Plants book, launched in October, can now be downloaded for free.

The book, by Marian C. Munro, Ruth E. Newell and Nicholas M. Hill, provides a comprehensive catalogue of the province's flora.

"It takes many partners working together to catalogue and preserve the province's picturesque natural history," said Communities, Culture and Heritage Minister Tony Ince. "Nova Scotians and researchers from other provinces can now download the entire book and use it to study and explore Nova Scotia's rich diversity of plant species."

The project took seven years to complete and involved academics, resource managers, technicians and students. Nearly 30 photographers provided images of more than 1,500 species of ferns and relatives, conifers and flowering plants.

"This ebook serves as an invaluable tool and resource for professional botanists, university researchers, students, teachers, naturalists, the agricultural community and the horticultural industry," said Ms. Newell. "It represents an updated compilation of our present knowledge of Nova Scotia's naturally occurring wild flora, including the current status of our rare and endangered species and occurrences of invasive species."

Illustrated with computer-generated distribution maps and full-colour photographs, the ebook includes a glossary, discussion of plant communities and a background to botanical study in the province.

"From the weird and smelly skunk cabbage melting the snows around Yarmouth to the globally rare eastern mountain avens on Brier Island to the splendid marsh marigold of swamps of Cheticamp, this new electronic flora invites a new generation of Nova Scotians to get out and visit the wonders of our wilds," said Mr. Hill.

"Never have I worked on a project with so many partners and it could not have been completed without the countless hours donated by volunteers provincewide," said Ms. Munro.

To download Nova Scotia Plants, go to http://museum.novascotia.ca/books .