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Summertime exploring

With July comes summer holidays, special plans and venturing into the outdoors. We are lucky to live in a great land that offers a wealth of sparkling rivers and lakes, magnificent mountains, ocean playgrounds and vast forests to explore.

We look forward to welcoming you back!. Stay tuned for the reopening updates.

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Highlights

Plant-pressing is easy!
Make your own preserved plant collection

Grab a your trowel, notebook and pruners, and head into the outdoors. Our senior botany research assistant, Paul Sokoloff, shows you how easy it is to press your own plants

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Leaves of three? Let it be!
Identifying poison ivy

In your summertime rambles in the woods, you may be nervous about brushing up against unknown vegetation that could be Poison Ivy. This notorious plant can be tricky to identify. The edges of the leaves can be smooth or wavy or toothed. It has three leaflets, but so do some other plant species. Our Curator of Botany, Jennifer Doubt, shares some helpful facts about this vexing plant.

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Science news
Crustacean genus named after museum biologist

Museum senior research assistant Ed Hendrycks has a newly-identified crustacean bearing his name. Over his 30-year career, the dedicated taxonomist has described about 100 new species of tiny invertebrates known as amphipods, which have a vital role in aquatic food webs. Now, a Russian scientist has honoured Ed’s expertise by naming a new genus after him, Hendrycksopleustes.

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Sweet treats
Naturally delicious ice cream toppings

Chill out in the summer heat by making your own super cool, fruit topping for your favourite frozen dessert. And did you know that cherries, apples and a few other popular fruits could not exist without cold weather? Some cherry trees may need up to 900 hours of cool temperatures in order to make fruit while apple trees may need as many as 1100 hours! Find out more and get the topping recipes: https://nature.ca/en/explore-nature/activities/ice-cream-toppings

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Collections Corner

Behind the scenes
Diatoms

Diatoms are single-celled microalgae found in every water body around the world. As you can see, these marine species come in a kaleidoscope of interesting shapes. The diatom on the left of this collage is Thalassiosira nordenskioeldii (we refer to as a string of pearls). This species is abundant and forms long strings floating in Arctic waters. Not only plentiful, this species is important for the marine food chain. Diatoms have silica shells (called valves) that remain in the sediment of oceans, lakes and rivers after the organism dies. These diatom shell deposits can help scientists better understand environments and climate conditions in the ancient past. There are over five million diatoms in the museum’s algae collection. 

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Editor: Laura Sutin
Questions or comments can be sent to lsutin@nature.ca

Photos
Header image (Moraine Lake): pixabay.com

Canadian Museum of Nature
Canadian Museum of Nature
P. O. Box 3443, Station D / PO Box 3443, Stn. D
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1P 6P4