Maple syrup: St. John’s sweetest springtime tradition

St. John’s is the home of one of Minnesota’s oldest maple syrup operations. The monks began making syrup in 1942 and have continued roughly every other spring until the present. Currently, the operation is jointly run by the Abbey and St. John’s Arboretum and it is one of the few maple syrup operations associated with a Minnesota college or university. The process by which maple syrup is made at St. John’s differs little from the procedures begun more than 60 years ago. In spring, sugar maple trees are tapped, sap is collected, and then it is boiled in the sugar house to produce syrup. Historically speaking, each year St. John’s installs about 1400 taps, collects more than 10,000 gallons of sap, and makes about 250 gallons of syrup. The best sap flow occurs from mid-March to mid-April. On average, the trees produce sap for a period of 22.5 days with a sugar content of 2.2%

Sister Remberta Westkaemper: a fine lady and excellent field botanist

Sister Remberta, the first full-time president of Saint Ben\u27s and founding member of the CSB Biology Department, was the preeminent authority on the flora of Stearns County. This presentation will focus on Sister Remberta\u27s botanical activities with an introduction to the CSB|SJU Bailey Herbarium. This work was supported by a Centennial Year Fellowship

The Floral Charms of Saint John’s: A Survey of Botanical Communities

Saint John’s is a “landscape paradise” in central Minnesota. Although no complete checklist of vegetation exists for the campus, various surveys reveal a diverse flora. This floral wealth is the result of several terrestrial biomes converging on campus — prairie, savanna, deciduous forest, and coniferous forest — as well as diverse aquatic habitats including both lakes and wetlands. A 56-acre restored prairie at the entrance of Saint John’s is dominated by big bluestem and little bluestem. A savanna has been restored to the north and east of the Gemini Lakes and is characterized by bur oaks scattered among prairie grasses and forbs. Minnesota’s oldest pine plantation occurs on campus near the Preparatory School. Common campus pines include red pine, Scotch pine, and white pine. More than half of the Arboretum is comprised of deciduous forests dominated by either sugar maple and basswood or oak. Cattails and an assortment of sedges and rushes are common in the large, restored wetland that occurs on the north end of campus. Our campus lakes support pondweeds, milfoil, and even carnivorous plants. European buckthorn, and other invasive species, such as earthworms, threaten the long-term health of Saint John’s plant communities