Victorin's water-hemlock (Cicuta maculata) COSEWIC assessment and status report: chapter 4

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Global range

Victorin’s water-hemlock is confined to Canada (Figure 2).  It is considered endemic to the upper St. Lawrence estuary (Labrecque and Lavoie, 2002).

Canadian range

In Canada, Victorin’s water-hemlock occurs only in the freshwater and slightly brackish intertidal zones of the St. Lawrence River.  To date, the plant has been counted in 39 localities (Table 1).  The southwest limit of its range is at Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pérade and the northeast limit is at Saint-Jean-Port-Joli and Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré (Figure 3).  The former southwest limit of Batiscan (Legault, 1986) is based on a specimen in full flower, the identification of which is questionable.

1 - See Table 2 for the meaning of classes A-D.  The site quality index X (extirpated) indicates that Victorin’s water hemlock and/or its habitat are extirpated from this location, despite sampling efforts in recent years.  The site quality index H (historic) indicates that the observation of the population dates back more than 25 years. 

** Saint-Jean-Port-Joli, anse de Trois-Saumons site is classified as B due to the difficulty of distinguishing var. victorinii from var. maculata due to their intermixing at the site.

Figure 3.  Canadian range of Victorin’s water hemlock (adapted from Labrecque and Lavoie, 2002), excluding the locality of Chandler (in the Gaspé).

One specimen of water-hemlock at the Marie-Victorin herbarium (No. 44 394) raises many questions.  It was collected by E. Jacques and Brothers Marie-Victorin and Rolland-Germain on August 6, 1931, and corresponds to the description of Victorin’s water-hemlock, except for its location:  Baie-des-Chaleurs, Chandler, Gaspé county; wetlands along the seashore.  The validity of this locality should be verified, because it is possible that Victorin’s water-hemlock seeds were transported by currents to this location.  The Pabos River estuary is one of the largest in the Gaspé and the presence of freshwater tides is possible there.  The example of Zizania aquatica var. brevis (endemic to the upper St. Lawrence estuary) and of several other estuarine species in the Miramichi River estuary in New Brunswick would indicate that the phenomenon is possible.

The specimens collected by Brouillet et al. (1996) from the mouth of Rivière du Sud at Montmagny, Château-Richer, L'Islet at Saint-Pierre and Les Fonds at Saint-Antoine-de-Tilly were referred to var. maculata.  Although the revision of these specimens was conducted during the preparation of the provincial status report (Coursol, 1999), the database of the Quebec Natural Heritage Information Centre (CDPNQ) had not yet been corrected in 2002.  Lastly, a specimen from Cap-Saint-Ignace collected by the author during the study by Brouillet et al. (1996) was referred to var. maculata in 2002.   A number of achenes had characters of var. victorinii, but others showed clear signs that they were of the variety maculata.