These plants sprouted from century-old seeds buried in Toronto's Port Lands

Plants grown from seeds found in a historic marsh in Toronto's Port Lands were put back into the land Thursday, marking the return of centuries-old nature in the area.

Shannon Baker, a project director with Waterfront Toronto, says the return of the plants is "powerful" since the organization's work has revolved around forming a new mouth of the Don River out of the former Ashbridges Bay Marshland. The marshland filled in following its deterioration due to industrial pollution and sewage more than 100 years ago.

"It's not exactly how it was ... but it also is a really important touchstone and a connection back to the original environment," said Baker.

The plants were first discovered after a construction worker spotted plants like cattail and bulrush — plants that aren't normally spotted in the area today — while on the job two years ago. The sprouted plants were transferred to nearby parks like Tommy Thompson, while buckets of soil were transferred to the University of Toronto for further research and with the hope that more seeds will germinate. 

On Thursday, the plants from those seeds were returned to the area through a ceremony with Indigenous partners, researchers and Waterfront staff.

"When the conditions were right, when the sunlight hit them and they had water, they were able to germinate and bring life back from that original marsh," said Baker, who called the discovery "serendipitous."

"It could have very easily been that those plants, before they really were visible, may have been covered up again with soil before we knew that they were there."

Construction has been ongoing since 2017 to help restore the area to its former glory. The plants' return to the area will help Torontonians "connect with nature" on a deeper level, said Baker. 

"They'll be growing up with the other species that are here already," she said.

Shelby Riskin, an assistant professor teaching ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Toronto, was the lead researcher investigating the seeds and soil. Since the seeds came to her lab, she says she's been working with undergraduate students to identify exactly what kind of plants the seeds would grow into. 

"It's taken us a lot of painstaking work to get some of those ideas to the species level," said Riskin. She said so far, researchers have been able to find more than 20 different plant types.

The research has helped give her and her team a closer look into how the wetland worked and what it looked like before it was impacted by human activity, a better understanding of what plants to put there now that the area is being restored, and how plant species today differ from the ones that existed more than a century ago.

"You very rarely in science have, kind of, closure on a project like this where there's almost a kind of spiritual return of the samples to the environment. I think that was really special," said Riskin.

"On the site today they looked like they had gone home."