Gotta Catch ‘em All
July 7, 2016 7:03 pm Leave your thoughts
One of our lunch time hobbies has always consisted of identifying uncommon plants we encounter or learning more about the common ones, like is it edible. Usually no. But now that fun past time has evolved into a legitimate project for school. A plant ID collection for a forestry course at University of Alberta, since I’ve just transferred in. I’ve gotten a huge head start, all of my coworkers love helping out and it’s almost become an obsession. Like Pokémon, I’ve got to catch them all! Even though I have already acquired more than the needed 30.
Twin Flower from the Leddy Lake.
Because it’s become a project then it now a more encouraged “stop and smell the flowers” feel our in the bush. Working all over the boreal forest and vastly diverse Peace Region, I have collected some unique species and discovered plants I was yet unaware we had. I’ve become quite the confident identifier. And I am fond of this hobby staying late a few minutes to press my plants, and learning how useful and diverse our ecosystems are.
Another interesting project we have going for the students are measuring the trial sites that DMI established. This can pretty monotonous some days going measuring hundreds of trees row by row, but it has provided us the skill set to efficiently take various types of measurements, record, enter and process the data. This has been useful for setting us up for our measurement plots in the forest.
Next up we have the tree plant operations starting Monday. With that comes all the cute saplings, exciting access opportunities, more learning and more interesting GoPro photo ops. Also, chances to find neat plants.
Excited to show you the upcoming adventures as the summer picks up,
Bailey