Plants

Generally speaking, the park's forest is a mix of red spruce, balsam fir, yellow birch, white birch and maples. It is known as the Acadian Forest. While maples contribute the most brilliant autumn colours from mid-September to mid-October, balsam fir gives a wonderful fragrance to the forests of Fundy. The forest floor is covered with carpets of moss, woodfern and bunchberry. By mid-late summer, the bright red clumps of the bunchberry fruit are very common.

In wet, poorly drained areas such as along the Caribou Plain trail, black spruce and larch live in a thick sphagnum moss carpet. Some of these stunted trees have lived here for more than a century, yet are no taller than a person. A lack of nutrients in naturally acidic soil is a major constraint to their growth.

Invasive plants pose a risk to a balanced ecosystem by working to displace native species. This is why resource conservation staff have made it a priority to monitor and come up with new innovative ways to address invasive plants. A few of our invasive plant monitoring initiatives are: Japanese Knotweed, Reed canary grass, and Woodland Angelica.