The Wapna’ki/Acadian Forest Region offers a staggering range of natural beauty and wonder to take in. A great way to experience it fully is to take a close look at nine of its distinct habitats, which have been recreated in the Harriet Irving Botanical Gardens.

  • Wet Woodland

    These plants lived with dinosaurs

    Common Plants: Speckled alder, sphagnum moss, Jack-in-the-pulpit, lambkill, rhodora

  • Sand Barrens

    An ecosystem yearning for fire

    Common Plants: Broom-crowberry, sweet fern, bearberry, red pine, dwarf serviceberry

  • Mixed Woodland

    The classic Acadian Forest habitat

    Common Plants: Gold-thread, wild sarsaparilla, eastern hemlock, American beech, wild lily-of-the-valley

  • Deciduous Woodlands

    Fleeting spectacles among enduring hardwoods

    Common Plants: Sugar maple, American beech, red oak, yellow birch, witch-hazel

  • Coniferous Woodland

    Pines, mushrooms, moss and more

    Common Plants: Eastern hemlock, white pine, red spruce, balsam fir, pink lady’s-slipper

  • Coastal Headlands

    Only the strong survive

    Common Plants: White spruce, broom-crowberry, creeping juniper, foxberry, and lowbush blueberry

  • Calcareous Woodland

    Where native orchids thrive

    Common Plants: Red osier dogwood, shrubby cinquefoil, Canada anemone, soapberry

  • Bog

    Discover some of nature’s most captivating phenomena

    Common Plants: Bog huckleberry, round-leaved sundew, leather-leaf, eastern larch

  • Freshwater Inland Marsh

    Where dragonflies roam

    Common Plants: Common arrowhead, broad-leaved cat-tail, sallow sedge, turtlehead, swamp rose.