PlantManagementInNWNorthAmerica

Question 1

Guest lecturer

Answer 1

Fiona Chambers

Question 2

Phenological indicators in the environment for seasonal events

Answer 2

• Ex. Birds arriving

Question 3

Red Cedar

Answer 3

• Rot-resistant
• Keystone species
• only here for 5000 years based on pollen records

Question 4

The word ‘Wilderness’

Answer 4

• Doesn’t exist in FN language

- ‘Terra Nullis’ is not a distinction (nobody’s land)

Question 5

Cultivation on coast

Answer 5

• Many perennial plants, not much annual tilling required

Question 6

Indian Spaghetti

Answer 6

• James Douglas saw acres of clovers when arriving in Victoria’s Clover Point
• Plant has complex carbohydrates, but causes indigestion

Question 7

What do dark colours in plants indicate? Give an example

Answer 7

• Dark colours indicate health effects

- Lycopene pigments in tomato

Question 8

What are 2 examples of FN cultivation?

Answer 8

• Pruned ‘orchard’

- Intertidal clam gardens

Question 9

FN and sugar

Answer 9

• Sugar causes strong mental response

- FN co-evolved with low starch diet, may not have stronger response to more sugar in diet

Question 10

How many berries could a FN family harvest in one season?

Answer 10

• 200,000 salal berries in one season

Question 11

FN use of fertilizers

Answer 11

• Heiltsuk people used fertilizers (added nitrogen, calcium, potassium, phosphorous)
• Used carcasses (fish and animals), salmon remains going back to plants in ecosystem
• Chopped up clam shells for calcium, neutralizing plant pH in acidic soil

Question 12

How can plant resources be used and maintained

Answer 12

• Anthropogenic ecosystems with tilling and pruning (Camas growth, death camas removed; pruned plants better after disturbance)
• Perceived abundance of plants (Blenkinsop valley called a lake due to blue of camas flowers)
• Work involved not seen
• Meristem bark removed w/o killing trees

Question 13

What does ‘Keeping it living’ mean?

Answer 13

• Not adversely affecting plant and animal populations by over-harvesting or other damage
• Maintaining the ability of the plants and animals to continue to grow and reproduce
• Maintaining the health and well-being of all the plants and animals in an ecosystem
• Maintaining the knowledge, skills, and world-views that support sustainable resource use

Question 14

How can plant resources be used and yet maintained?

Answer 14

• By not exceeding the carrying capacity of the plant populations (don’t harvest or damage more than can be repaired or replaced)
• By working with natural reproductive and regenerative processes of plants and plant populations to maintain growth and productivity

Question 15

Meristem Bank

Answer 15

• Meristem is embryonic plant tissue that is actively dividing
• Found at tips of stems and roots
• Bank is tissue that has capability, under right circumstances, to become meristem (notes along stem or trunk)

Question 16

Perceived abundance on the NW coast

Answer 16

• ‘This civilization was built upon an ample supply of goods, inexhaustible and obtained w/o excessive expenditure of labour’
• ‘Because of the limitless abundance of fish, people simply did not rely heavily on plant foods’

Question 17

Keeping It Living by:

Answer 17

• Selective/partial harvesting
• tending
• tilling
• weeding
• fertilizing
• burning
• pruning/coppicing
• ownership
• stewardship

Question 18

Kinnikinnick and ‘red willow’

Answer 18

Edible berries, plants for medicine