Victorin's water-hemlock (Cicuta maculata) COSEWIC assessment and status report: chapter 7

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Legault (1986) reports that Victorin’s water-hemlock was known from 10 localities in 1985 (9 localities without the revised population of Batiscan) and that he visited four of them.  He states that the populations of Lotbinière and Saint-Vallier were well preserved and that the populations of Cap-Rouge and Saint-Romuald had been reduced by road construction.  The habitat of these populations has been stable since that time, except for that of the Lotbinière population, which is at risk of disappearing due to the repeated passage of ATVs over a wide swath of the upper littoral.  A plant count was not conducted at the populations visited by Legault (1986).

Several new localities were discovered in the inventory by Brouillet et al. (1996).  In the 2002 inventory, some historic populations could not be found, but a new population was discovered.  Victorin’s water hemlock has been documented from 39 localities but only 33 are now extant. The localities are classified as follows:  four occurrences with a site quality index of A, 10 occurrences with a site quality index of B, six occurrences with a site quality index of C, 13 occurrences with a site quality index of D, two eradicated populations (X) and four historic occurrences (H). See Tables 1 and 2.

The discovery of several new populations results in a significant increase in the number of known individuals since 1986.  Other new populations may still be discovered along the shores of the St. Lawrence River.  The inventories of the summer of 2002 at several localities resulted in the discovery of two new populations (Sainte-Pétronille, Anse à Porteous and Neuville) and made it possible to update the demographic data on other populations (Saint-Vallier and Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures).  Despite many efforts to rediscover it, the species is probably extirpated from the historic localities, but. recolonization is possible because suitable habitat continues to exist.