The Maine Woods

This was one of the most relaxing vacations I’ve had since we visited Hawai’i several years ago. There was no work to be done, no agenda to maintain–just time to swim, rest, and of course botanize and bird the Maine woods (click HERE for my bird list). I had one target plant to find in Maine–Kinnikinnick. I wanted to see a manzanita on the East Coast. This might have been the most difficult part of the vacation, being as it took me nearly 10 days to find the species! But on the second-to-last day, in Acadia National Park on the summit of Cadillac Mountain, we found it under a layer of fog. What follows are some images from the trip. Happy Plant Exploring.

Kinnickinick (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi) in Maine.
Kinnikinnick (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi) in Maine.
Color plate and range map for Arctostaphylos uva-ursi from Field Guide to Manzanitas.
Color plate and range map for Arctostaphylos uva-ursi from Field Guide to Manzanitas.

Other Botanical Discoveries…

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Maine is famous for wild blueberries!
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Lingonberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea) & reindeer lichen (Cladonia rangiferina)
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Creeping dogwood (C. canadensis)
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Pitcher plant (Sarracenia purpurea)
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Grass-pink (Calopogon tuberosus) – photo by Allison Poklemba
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Round-leaved sundew (Drosera rotundifolia) – photo by Allison Poklemba

The Conifers

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Common juniper (Juniperus communis)
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Red spruce (Picea rubens)
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White spruce (Picea glauca)
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Pitch pine (Pinus rigida)
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Northern white-cedar (Thuja occidentalis)

CLICK HERE to explore other trees found in Maine.

One Reply to “The Maine Woods”

  1. I saw both common juniper and kinnikinick in the Spanish Pyrenees. It was neat to see familiar “northwestern” plants an ocean away. This was in the Sierra de Larra, an area of karstic topography and the largest area of old, unexploited montane forest I saw anywhere in Spain. A great rarity in western Europe, of course.

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