|
|
Today I went with Gretel to Staffanson to look for flowering plants. We walked along the east and west transects and found quite a few plants that should flower next week or the week after that! I still don’t know exactly where the transect lies in the large remnant that is Staffanson, but I’m sure I’ll learn! 🙂
I flagged quite a few plants that are due to flower soon.
Also, while searching the common garden for E. angustifolia plants, I found an interesting one at row 22, position 956.
Apparently, this plant is famous for showing up every year looking like this. Could this be a mutated plant?
Sarah B
Today was yet another very productive day.
We started out the morning with flagging plants in common garden 2 at Hegg Lake. Working in pairs, we used giant meter tapes and worked hard to get the whole plot flagged before lunch. We also learned the best way to “reel in” the meter tapes – it looked a bit like a dance to me.
As we walked back to the cars to head back for lunch, Stuart stopped to point out Heliopsis helianthoides, also known as false sunflower. This plant has composite flower heads, as does Echinacea angustifolia, so it was good to learn about the similarities in structure between the two such as ray flowers and bracts.
Our afternoon was spent using PDAs (Visor) to input data about plants in the inbreeding gardens. We worked in groups of 2 again, along with Per and Hattie who helped us (they were awesome!). The weather turned hot and humid at this point but root beer floats were waiting for us when we finished! That was my personal highlight of the day. In the common garden, we saw some E. angustifolia due to flower quite soon. Exciting!
After that, the team headed back to the old town hall to eat dinner (pasta with shrimp and artichokes) and then watch a movie (Donnie Darko). All in all, a pretty good day! 🙂
Sarah Baker
Hello, everyone! If you couldn’t tell from the title, I am Sarah Baker. I am a rising Junior at St. Catherine University and an REU intern this summer. I am a biology major with an interest in wildlife and conservation biology. During the academic year, as well as being a student, I work as a teaching assistant for ceramics courses at my school. I will also be working as “animal room technician” this upcoming semester, taking care of organisms used in labs and research for biology related courses.
Anyway, a bit of information about me: I grew up in Golden Valley, Minnesota and spent a lot of time in my childhood and teenage years outdoors. I often went hiking, canoeing, biking, and other types of adventuring outdoors with my family and learned much about nature from those experiences. My father, being a biologist, would often point out various plants and animals to me and identify them, teaching me what they were and interesting facts about them. These excursions fed my interest in wildlife and conservation. In the future, I plan to attend graduate school to study wildlife or conservation biology.
When I’m not doing cool science-y things, I enjoy making pottery, being out in nature, sailing, and hanging with friends. I am also the president of the ceramics club at my school where we host Empty Bowls community service projects to raise money for Minnesota Open Arms.
This summer, my independent project will focus on flowering phenology of various remnants. I will be adding to a data set from 2011 and 2012. My main interest with this project is to see if there are correlations between peak flowering times of the same remnants across multiple years. I look forward to all I will experience this summer!
If you are interesting in learning a bit more about me, check out my webpage on the Echinacea Project website!
Sarah Baker
|
|
