NPS photo

Sea lavender

There has been a long history of botanical exploration in and around Acadia National Park. In the late 1880s, students from Harvard University made their way to Acadia from Boston via train and steamship each summer in search of the unique plants found in bogs, on mountain summits and the many habitats in between. The Champlain Society, as they called themselves, published "Flora of Mount Desert Island, Maine," authored by Rand and Redfield, in 1894. This benchmark publication cataloged vascular plants, mosses, algae and lichens.

Acadia has more than 1,100 vascular plant species that represent a wide diversity of plant life adapted to thrive in acidic, low nutrient bogs and rocky, treeless mountain summits. Grasses and wildflowers abound in park meadows, and lakes and ponds are home to emergent and floating aquatic vegetation.

Almost one quarter of Acadia's flora is non-native, and about 25 species are state-listed rare plants. It is evident that 300 years of human settlement and land use have changed the composition of plant communities throughout Acadia National Park. Read more about the exotic plant management program (pdf - 203 kb) at the park.