Today was all about pure phenology. We assembled ready to go at 8:30 and all got randomized assignments for phenology. We split into seven cars and seven routes, Per and Hattie helped too! We all worked with purpose until lunch, marking style persistence on each flowering head. I even found one head that had completely finished flowering and was already dry and pointy. I wish I had the foresight to photograph it, but at 11:30 with only half an hour to lunch I guess I was not thinking clearly. At lunch we shared the photos of weird flowers that were taken. The caterpillar flower at On27 was looking nicely wrapped up.
A cozy home for a creative caterpillar
Another interesting head was one that Gretel found. The bracts were covered with ants and aphids.
Echinacea angustifolia’s specialist aphids infiltrate the bracts
After we ate lunch, we split into five teams. One group went to finish phenology at On27. A few groups took on phenology in p1 (including 99 south). I worked with Abby to assess all of the funky records that were taken at p1. After we created two separate lists of all the flowering heads in p1, Gretel compared the lists and made a list of all of the records that were either contradictory, possible duplicates, or potentially incorrect for other reasons. After much debate about how to indicate which records were in fact correct, Abby and I visited each mystery record and noted whether the record was “G” for “good” or “D” for “delete”.
We finished up a little early and were let off for the day because of the early morning tomorrow (for all of us heading up to Pembina to look at orchids.) We headed straight off to Elk Lake for a bit of a swim, and Stuart, Gretel, Hattie, and Per showed up to take a dip with us! It was a great way to cool off after the first of two PURE PHENOLOGY days.
Sunscreen BEFORE swimming is essential
