As the largest wetland complex in New Brunswick, the Grand Lake Meadows are home to a number of diverse and significant plant communities and can be counted amongst the unique treasures of Canada’s natural heritage.

Please visit the Meadows through this site and learn about the vascular plants that call this wetland complex “home”.

Background (unexpand background info)

The Grand Lake Meadows is New Brunswick’s largest wetland complex and is home to a number of diverse and unique plant communities. During the summers of 2004 and 2005, a group of biologists with Nature NB (formerly the New Brunswick Federation of Naturalists) undertook a survey of a specific area of the Grand Lake Meadows, which is referred to in the final report as the “Project Boundary Area” (PBA). A copy of the final report document is available on the Nature NB website. This area, outlined on the map, extends from McGowan’s Corner in the west to the Jemseg River in the east. The Saint John River borders the area to the southwest, while its north-eastern border is made up of the Main Thoroughfare, Maquapit Lake, Lower Thoroughfare and Grand Lake. This area is approximately 5 000 ha (12 000 acres) in size. All of the information presented on this website was collected within this area, which we will be referring to, for simplicity, as the “Grand Lake Meadows”.

The primary objectives of the study were to catalogue all vascular plant species within the project area and to characterize the different habitats and plant communities in the area.  The numbers or percentages of species mentioned in this site refer to the numbers that were found during the time of our study. Some species will have been missed, and in the future new species will infiltrate the meadows. Plant communities are dynamic systems of constant change. The habitat types chosen by our researchers attempt to represent the complex composition of the area.