Shrubs of Ontario

Pleasance Crawford is a Canadian landscape and garden-history researcher
and writer and the co-author of Garden Voices: Two Centuries of Canadian
Garden Writing.

“The purpose of this book is to provide, in the form of a field guide or manual, a means of identifying the shrubs that can be found in Ontario growing outside cultivation,” states the Introduction. Shrubs of Ontario is a thorough work by mature scientists: James H. Soper, Curator Emeritus of the National Museum of Natural Sciences, Ottawa; and Margaret L. Heimburger, Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto. It contains nearly 350 full-page scaled drawings based on herbarium specimens, the work of Leslie A. Garay and Ronald A. With. As colleagues in the University of Toronto Department of Botany, Drs. Soper and Heimburger published 100 Shrubs of Ontario, with illustrations by Dr. Garay, in 1961; the present definitive work completes the project.

A section of the Introduction explains the logic and precision of the Latin binomials which are used throughout, together with vernacular names “when they appear to be in common use.” Both, as well as family names, are included in the single index; but only Latin names are included in the excellent keys which precede the text. Shrubs are arranged in the text according to family, then alphabetically by genus and species. Each species is described as simply and readably as possible, using the precise botanical terms covered in an appended glossary. Descriptions and habitats, notes on the plants’ uses, field checks, and fascinating maps showing distribution patterns, plus a 20-cm. measure on the inside back cover, help the book fulfill its purpose as a field guide — although its weight, more than a kilogram, might limit its usefulness for backpackers not exclusively interested in shrub identification.

Several welcome features are: a listing of Ontario shrubs by phytogeographic groups; a listing of species name in Ontario; a listing of botanical authors, with special notes on those who named more than a few Ontario shrubs; maps of the forest regions and geology of Ontario; and a listing of literature cited. Particularly welcome are the clarity of the writing, and the near-poetry of the habitat descriptions. With Soper and Heimburger as guides, we can imagine looking for Salix planifolia Pursh, a shrub willow, “... in cool moist habitats; along rocky lakeshores, in cedar swamps and black spruce bogs, at the edges of creeks and sedge marshes and on moss-covered boulders in canyons ...” even while we endure the summer heat of urban asphalt and concrete.