Do we measure, at least, the enormous work accomplished with the publication of these astonishing works that are the five volumes that make up Curious Plant Stories from Canada ? The fifth has just been published. Jacques Cayouette and Alain Asselin invite readers to the vast land of plants. Here are the very often surprising stories of scientists combined finely with those of plants which, often, border our lives without our noticing it. Even if you start it at the end, such a book sticks with you.
Anyone who is directly or indirectly interested in the plant world in Canada, in the history of flora, in its protection and its exploitation, can only immerse themselves with delight in this unique work. It is a considerable popularization effort, cooked and presented in a beautiful way by Alain Asselin, former professor in the Department of Plant Science at Laval University, and by Jacques Cayouette, botanist and researcher at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.
Where to start talking about it? Curious Plant Stories from Canada is structured around around thirty stories of plants, without depriving itself of many extras, in the form of boxes.
Through the history of plants and the scientists who have taken an interest in them, we are invited, in a way, to the genesis of a scientific awakening. In these pages, we come across a number of scholars whose names are most often unknown to us. However, their lives often have the appearance of novels.
Who knows, for example, Adrien Gosselin, born in Saint-Valérien in 1885, a man accustomed very early to harvesting rare plants to identify them, while pursuing studies at the Oka Agricultural Institute? This man will work closely on the genetic improvement of wheat. His studies in France turn out badly. France falls. He knows the Vichy regime. He finds himself interned in a concentration camp. He escapes… The man says he was tracked down by the Gestapo. We would love to learn more. In any case, this Quebec scientist belatedly joined the French resistance, in August 1944. He will defend, after the war, two theses following the study of several hundred plants.
What link can the Belgian Baron Louis Empain have with botany, he whose extraordinary estate, illegally destroyed in the spring of 2022, was the high place of Sainte-Marguerite-du-Lac-Masson? In 1940, Empain published a note on the spring flora of Duparquet, a village in northwestern Abitibi. In the company of botanist and ethnologist Jacques Rousseau, this multimillionaire took a close interest in plants. According to this curious duo, the most remarkable spring plant in Quebec is without a shadow of a doubt the Carolina claytonia, a small flower that shows its elegance to the world from the first warm days of April, even in the cold of the north.
Sometimes, the mere mention of the species named by Asselin and Cayouette has something touching. Here we are in Oka, this center of agriculture. There are evaluated new types of apple trees. Can we read their name without being touched by a form of diffuse enchantment? Summer apple trees: Red Astrakhan, Duchess of Ogdensburg, White Pigeon, Téfofsky… Autumn apple trees: Alexandre, Autonowska, Cardinal, Fameuse d’Ani, Fameuse de Montréal, Hare Papka… And winter apple trees: Arabska, Fenouillet Gris, Longfield, Pewakee, Rainette du Canada, Saint-Antoine, Saint-Laurent… I will name just a few, while wondering how we came to not see ourselves presented, in our supermarkets, only a handful of varieties: the Empire apple, the Gala, the McIntosh…
Tourism, pollen, ragweed
After the Second World War, a strong interest in plants that cause hay fever or dermatitis, that is to say skin rashes, appeared in Quebec. An open war against ragweed and certain other species, such as wild parsnip and yellow clog, is launched.
In 1945, to promote tourism, there was talk of ridding the Gaspé of this “weed”. Colonies are identified. Children are hired. Under the supervision of their teachers, they will uproot the hated plant by hand.
“In each class, I fixed a specimen of common ragweed and a specimen of common ragweed shown in the herbarium on the wall, and at the same time I left a certain number of forms on the object of my visit,” explains Elzéar. Campagna, one of the scientists who lead the operations against this plant.
Where does “ragweed” come from? Its name remains a mystery. We know at least that the first harvest of perennial ragweed in the province will be that made in Nominingue, in August 1932, by two monks, the brothers Robert and Roy of the Clercs of Saint-Viateur. Obviously, the species was not long in being identified and listed everywhere, in its various varieties… Well, almost everywhere.
Herbert Groh, trained at the University of Toronto, a specialist in horticulture, will determine that the region of La Malbaie is not conducive to the development of this plant. An advertising leaflet is published to boast, near the Richelieu manor, the fact that one can escape, there, from seasonal allergies…
Political nature and politics of nature
Pierre Dansereau, considered the father of ecology in Quebec, has several pages devoted to it. When he married in 1935, he made a commitment to his wife, Françoise Masson, to “support” her on a farm. A farm offered by his father, closely linked to the media industry and involved in conservative political circles.
The same father had given his son, when he was barely old enough to drive, a brand new big American convertible car. This is certainly not the life, in the midst of an economic crisis, that other young people of his age lead!
Ecology sometimes has surprising political roots. Perhaps this book, like others, does not point this out enough. The young Dansereau was a member of a pressure group, Jeune-Canada. These young protesters, supported by Lionel Groulx, are much more than “an organization”, as Cayouette and Asselin write. Pierre Dansereau later apologized for the anti-Semitic remarks made by his friends and himself during the public outings of Jeune-Canada. The overall trajectory of Dansereau, a young protege of Brother Marie-Victorin, seems all the more astonishing.
The constitution of knowledge
In 1954, the French Canadian Association for the Advancement of Scienthese (Acfas) presents a brief to the Royal Commission on Constitutional Problems, better known as the Tremblay Commission. What are Quebec scientists saying? Quite simply, they are not able to effectively ensure the province’s constitutional rights in terms of natural resources. For what ? Because competent scientific personnel are lacking!
However, natural resources are at the very heart of Quebec life. Premier Maurice Duplessis says so himself, when talking about the forest, its exploitation. On it depend, he says, “to a very large extent, the subsistence and development of the province on the road to progress.” Progress, it must be said, is then essentially associated with the idea of the growth of exploitation.
Many scientific works, including those of Joseph Risi, are devoted to the desire to make the most of Quebec flora in general and the forest in particular. A Swiss-born forestry specialist, Risi will lead the Canadian Forest Products Institute. To better understand the fate of the forest today, it is undoubtedly important to know the life of people like him.
In 1966, a researcher born in Slovakia, Miroslav Grandtner, found himself in Quebec. A professor at Laval University, he shares his knowledge of botany and ecology. He will quickly appear as one of the great specialists of the Quebec forest. The forest flora of his adopted country includes 432 species, he notes.
Miroslav Grandtner will call, in 1970, for the creation of ecological reserves. Two of the main national parks, Mont-Tremblant and Laurentides, were created… in 1895! How can we think of protecting the forest without appropriate conservation areas?
The dependence of humans on the natural environment is such, observed Miroslav Grandtner, “that in the event of its destruction, man risks destroying himself”. In other words, we must see to planning the establishment of new protected areas, while promoting research and education, for the benefit of future generations. Have we listened to it?