[3] Her mother, famously, published Roughing it in the Bush, a romantic history about the harshness of Canadian rural living during the 1830s.

The book, very expensive for its time, was sold by subscription, largely through its author's own efforts; as an enterprising widow, she also worked as an illustrator to support her children and herself.

After the death of her husband, she began work on a book of Canadian wild flowers, with her water-coloured illustrations and Traill's text.

In 1972, 11 of the watercolour paintings were reproduced in Eustella Langdon's Pioneer Gardens (Toronto: Holt Rinehart and Winston).

[6] Her heirs presented her paintings and copies of Canadian Wild Flowers and Studies of Plant Life in Canada to the University of Toronto in 1934–5.