On this sweltering day, Lindsey and I worked on developing a system for keeping track of demopup, the process of mopping up any mistakes, mishaps, and general instances of misses. We collected a list of every site and made a poster to keep a close eye on the process, and have some fun. Chupy the chupacabra/badger/puppy has made a reappearance.

We will revisit every site to search, demo, and survey flowering echinacea one more time. Team members will keep track of how many plants they find that aren’t all the way through the process, and once they get back to Hjelm they get to put a corresponding number of their own special sticker next to the site in question. Sticker options to come!

While working with the Echinacea Project since spring, I have surprisingly only ever cleaned one or two Echinacea heads. I have done a lot of cleaning and randomizing with Liatris aspera as well as rechecking, scanning, and randomizing for Echinacea angustifolia. But here is one of those rare heads cleaned by me! It has been cleaned, rechecked, and now scanned by yours truly. Sadly there were no achenes found in this one.