Broom crowberry, Corema conradii, Nova Scotia’s earliest flowering native species after skunk cabbage, is now in flower in the Backlands!
We know that courtesy of Joshua Barss Donham who took these pics in the Backlands on Apr 11, 2025:
 Broom Crowberry, male flowers |
 Broom Crowberry, female flowers |
Broom Crowberry is “dioecious” (separate male and female plants) with terminal flowers appearing in April, (sometimes in March) through to mid-May, depending on the site and year.
Male plants (and colonies developed from a single male plant) are much more common than female plants. Raymond Fielding in Shrubs of Nova Scotia (1988) aptly describes male colonies as presenting “a haze of wine-coloured anthers”… More about Broom Crowberry