A very successful trip to Walpole Island was held on August 10. Most participants met at 9.00 A.M. at St. Clair High School and the rest went directly to the Walpole Island Heritage Centre.

We were met by our Island contact, Clint Jacobs, Natural Heritage coordinator for the Heritage Centre, and by Allen Woodliffe, District Ecologist for the Aylmer District of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, who knows the people and the wildlife of Walpole Island very well. Allen has helped out Lambton Wildlife before and we greatly appreciated his leadership on this occasion. Aimee Johnson, a Heritage Centre staff member, also joined our group.

The morning was spent at the Triangle Prairie, a part of the Altiman Prairie complex. Along the path Allen showed us the tall prairie grasses, Big Bluestem, Indian Grass, Switch Grass and Cord Grass. Then we walked right into the prairie vegetation. As well as the tall white candelabras of Culver's Root we saw Mountain Mint, Canada TickTrefoil, Dense Blazing Star, Sticky Tofieldia, Giant Sunflower, Little Bluestem, Northern Bedstraw, Field Thistle, Prairie Loosestrife, Prairie Willow, Grass of Parnasus. Allen said that Triangle Prairie is currently protected by a five year agreement between Band Council and the private owner.

After an excellent lunch at the Heritage Centre, featuring the famous Indian Corn soup, we drove to the Sandpits. The Sandpits area is an Oak Savannah, also maintained by fire. Bracken is the dominant ground cover. Allen explained that the amount of canopy cover often is used to define savannah or forest (one of the standard definitions states that if the canopy cover is over 50% it is considered forest). Along the path we saw Wild Indigo and Yellow False Foxglove. Farther on was a splendid showing of Prairie Dock, spectacular with its huge bright green toothed leaves leaping up through the dense vegetation and its two meter tall flower stalks topped by six centimeter, yellow,daisy-like flowers.

Allen said that there are well over 800 plant species known from Walpole Island. Approximately 115 of those species are considered Provincially significant (S1,S2,S3) by the Natural Heritage Information Centre (NHIC). He prefers their rankings to those of the Committee On the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC). He feels that the COSEWIC process, although fairly thorough in its approach is also very onerous, and therefore very slow to make its designations (Endangered, Threatened, Special Concern) while the NHIC is able to come to much the same conclusion but much more quickly.

Many thanks to the Walpole Island First Nation for allowing our group the privilege of visiting their internationally significant prairie and

Dorothy Tiedje (with input from Alan Woodliffe)