Victorin’s gentian COSEWIC assessment and status report: chapter 4

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Distribution

Global range

Victorin’s gentian is found only in Canada, in the St. Lawrence estuary (Figure 2). Given its limited range, it is considered endemic to the fluvial section of the estuary (Labrecque and Lavoie, 2002).

Figure 2. Global range of Victorin’s gentian.

Canadian range

Victorin’s gentian grows only in the freshwater and slightly brackish intertidal zones of the St. Lawrence River (Figure 3). To date, the plant has been inventoried in 43 localities (Table 1). The southwestern limit is at Deschambault and Lotbinière, and the northeastern limit is at Saint-Roch-des-Aulnaies and Île aux Oies (Brouillet et al., 1996).

Figure 3. Canadian range of Victorin’s gentian (taken from Labrecque and Lavoie, 2002).

Four localities mentioned in the report provided by the Centre de données sur le patrimoine naturel du Québec (CDPNQ) seem unlikely, questionable or ephemeral. One herbarium specimen from Pont-Rouge, collected by Father Louis-Marie, Brothers Fabius and Adonis, Marcel Raymond and J. Paquin on August 12, 1934 (No. 34605 at Laval University’s Louis-Marie herbarium) is an unlikely locality, because the site is not subject to tidal cycles and has since been extensively botanized by various botanists, including the author in preparing the update status report on Provancher’s fleabane (Erigeron philadephicus var. provancheri). In this specific case, the inaccuracy must be due to a label error. The locality of Sainte-Anne (no collection date) is more plausible because the label reads “freshwater beaches”. In this specific case, it could be Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, but no Victorin’s gentian plants were observed in several inventories conducted in this sector, despite the existence of adjacent localities. The localities of Saint-Germain (July 30, 1952) and “North Shore” (1932) are likely ephemeral and are specimens that were uprooted by the ice along the shorelines in upstream localities and redeposited further downstream. The water salinity at Saint-Germain-de-Kamouraska and on the North Shore is too high for the long-term survival of Victorin’s gentian.

¹ See Table 2 for the meaning of classes A-D. The quality index X (extirpated) indicates that the habitat and/or Victorin’s gentian are extirpated from this location, despite sampling efforts in recent years. The quality index E (recent) indicates that the observation of the population dates back at least 25 years, but that we do not have information on its demography. The quality index H (historic) indicates that the observation of the population dates back more than 25 years.