Collecting Texas Wildflowers

It was a good year in Texas for wildflowers

Marie's boots after a day in the field

Daniel and I have returned from a week of collecting in Texas.  Final tally was about 250 specimens, most of them unique -- very few duplicates.  Texas offered such an amazing display of diverse flora everywhere we went.

We started out renting an RV.  Daniel has long been dreaming about having some kind of Roving Botany Van and I have been fantasizing about chucking everything and hitting the road.  So renting this gave both of us real world experience by which to gauge the sense of our fantasies.  If you are on Daniel's contact list you already know that as soon as he got home he went on eBay and found a cute vintage trailer and "won" it.  Daniel will use it all season, from Maine to the Carolinas and Florida.  I hope to join him on some trips as work allows.

Roving Botany Van

Stinky!

Our rented RV was spacious and well equipped with a shower, toilet, three burner gas stove, sink and microwave.  It also had heat and A/C but we didn't use them.  Before hitting the road we stopped at the fabulous Central Market in Austin and stocked up on food and did eat from the RV most meals.  Worked out fine.  It was so convenient to be able to stop when and where we wanted.  We stayed in state parks instead of Motel 6.  The on board toilet was great.  No more peeing in roadside weeds for me! Emptying the holding tank was not so much fun, but pretty easy (according to Daniel.)


Our first night in the Austin area we stayed with friends Miriam and Jimmy at the Little Buckaroo Ranch.  They have over 100 animals and specialize in authentic Texas parties and events as well as horsemanship for kids.  It's a great place, really beautiful and not Disney-fied.  The real thing.  Miriam showed me Pig Lee Wiggly's favorite scratching spot.

We went out to dinner with Jimmy, Miriam and Daniel's mom Ellen for a real Texas barbecue at the famous Salt Lick.

In the morning the moon set over the ranch as the sun came up and the round of chores began.

Before we headed west the next day we made a lunch of foods foraged on the ranch.  These included stuffed fig leaves and a foraged salad with an agarita berry dressing.  And one dish I won't mention because we did not like it at all!  :-(

Fig leaves stuffed with wild onions and wild rice (store bought)

Foraged salad with agarita berry and honey dressing

 Agarita bushes are all over the place.  They have edible berries and medicinal roots. 

Agarita

We stayed a few days in the Garner State Park and made day trips from there.  It was practically deserted so we were able to get a site right on the Rio Frio.  The Rio Frio is a spring fed river so it is always cool, clean, and clear. 

We relaxed in hammocks that Daniel hung for us.  You can see how empty the park is.  We were told that for the weekend, every spot would be filled.

The river bed was all smooth with round river stones.  There were trout too.  There were wildflowers amidst the beach rocks but we did not collect in the park. 

After Garner we stayed at an RV park on the Guadalupe River.  The owner gave us carte blanche to collect there.  It was a pretty camp and nearly empty as well. 

The flowers all over were amazing this year compared to last April.  Last year we made one stop by a road to look at a single wine cup that was four inches tall.  I oohed and aahed over it. This year the roadside wine cups were as tall as me.  And en masse. 

Everywhere we stopped there were so many flowers.  This spot is typical.  We would pull over.  Daniel would set up his table and I would go collecting, searching for things we didn't already have. 

 It was amazing -- fields everywhere were full of flowers.

Indian blanket and Mexican poppies as far as the eye can see

Bluebonnets - These made us stop, Daniel got the shot from his side

Bluebonnets and more

The yellow swaths are wildflowers

Even where there weren't many flowers it was so GREEN!

There was always something for the cupholder arrangement. 







Texans were complaining about Bastard Cabbage, a nasty non-native invasive that the roads department planted to control erosion.  But now it runs rampant and is choking out native species.  Daniel said its edible so maybe that is the solution, although he said nothing about taste. 

The collecting was great.  There were lovely purple-blue flowers with silly monkey faces.  Masses of purple verbena all over.  Primroses, yellow ones and pink ones.  Indian blanket by the acre.  And of course bluebonnets.  And little pink starry flowers.  Vines and ferns.  Thistles and sages.  Things growing out of rocks.  And so much green.  I've been to Texas dozens of times and never saw it so green. 

 

One day I spotted some water lilies in the Guadalupe River.  Daniel struggled to pull one out for a specimen. 

Water lily before being prepped as a specimen

 Then he showed me how even a big clunky plant like the water lily can be made into a standard size specimen.  First he trimmed most of the leaves.  Next he split the root with a machete.  Then he folded the stems and arranged the leaves and flower gently onto the paper.  Then he placed the wooden press cover over it and pressed hard.  After a day drying in the field press it went into the plant drier.  In the fall I will try to get a photo of the mounted specimen before it is permanently stored in the herbarium.

Trim most of the leaves

Split root with a machete

Ready to press

Arrange leaves and flower to fit

Press super hard

Plant drier in back of RV

 Just to show you that botanists are different from you and me, here is Daniel with his favorite plant of the whole trip.  A spurge with insignificant white flowers.  I almost left it in the field because its not much of a flower, but Daniel sees plants differently and he was thrilled. 

It's not Texas if you don't see longhorns

At one point we stopped in D'Hanis, a small town in west Texas.  

There were some posters in a window with the Code of the West and Cowboy principles.  I saw the truth of these on the Little Buckaroo Ranch.   When you have 125 animals that need to be fed and watered twice a day you know to do what has to be done.  I wonder how the average American's life would change if they lived by these values.  I wonder how our country would change if politicians lived by these values. 

Code of the West Principle:

Do What Has to Be Done

Cowboy Qualities:

Reliability and Responsibility

Reliability:

Believe in yourself and never quit

Be trusted to follow through and perform

Be dependable, independent and trustworthy

Responsibility:

Answer the call of duty

Be dependable and trustworthy

Accept the consequences of your actions

That's it.  I couldn't post on the road since there was no cell service most places.  Now that we are back it's kind of a blur.  In two weeks we will be in North Carolina.  Daniel will be documenting the flora of Pisgah National Forest and I'll help. 

Botanical names to follow when Daniel gets back from Maine.  I'm a dunce with taxonomy. 

Texas road trip coming up

The bluebonnets are in bloom and we are hitting West Texas this weekend.  From Monday the 8th to the 16th check back for our updates on all things flora in Texas.  We rented an RV so won't be wasting time searching for motels.  While the winter has been mild it has been long.  It will be good to collect again.

In the meantime see what Daniel has been up to.  He has been foraging and leading foraging Meet Up groups.  We even had a full dinner of all foraged plant foods.  That's the spread in the photo.

Here is a link to Daniel's new blog:

http://beingwherethewildthingsare.blogspot.com/

It's all a Blurb now.

Daniel gave me such a great gift for my b-day (the plant presses - see September entry) that I was in a fuddle about what to give him for his b-day in November.  When we returned from the big collecting trip a few friends, and Daniel, suggested that the blog be made into a book so it wouldn't ever be totally lost.  We trust Google, but...

A friend mentioned that there is great blog publishing software on line.  I looked into it.  I did find some that will print your blog but there is little freedom in layout etc. 

Then I found Blurb.  Blurb lets you publish a book so easily it is amazing.  It is a free software program you download to your computer.  It allows you to create a book easily.  I basically just cut and pasted my copy off the blog and drag and dropped the photos from Picasa or from iPhoto.  I resized the photos to make it visually more interesting than the blog.  The three-four month blog translated to a 160 page book.  I was amazed.  When my friend Doris said there was a book in my blog I did not think there was enough content.  Was I wrong.

So this is what it looks like.  I ordered one copy in hardcover.  Softcover would be less expensive.  Blurb recommends that you start with one to make sure it looks the way you envision it.  They are right.  I found so many typos...

I corrected the typos and ordered two more.  A total of three books printed.

So now there is a permanent record of the trip.  The flora...

And some of the bouquets I made.  I love that there is an option to create two color spreads..for impact! 

And single page spreads, and images that overlap...

So I am a fan of Blurb.  I think the books were about $75 each.  That's hardcover.  There are ways to save with different paper stock.  I am thinking of scanning family photos and making a Blurb book for my brothers of images from the family albums.  There is so much you can do and it really is easy. Not sure when I will be adding any more to the blog or even if there will be more trips.  But printing a book of the whole experience was very satisfying.  If you want a copy let me know and I'll set it up so you can order it on Blurb with no up-charge.

A trip to the herbarium and the mounting room

Yesterday Daniel gave me a look at the progress of some of the specimens we co-collected this year.  Getting from the field to the herbarium is a long process.  We looked at specimens that we collected in Texas in April 2011.  Here are some:

It's interesting to look at specimens after fieldwork since each one triggers a memory of a unique ecosystem.  Many we collected were from Balstrop, TX which you will recall burned this summer.  We guess that many of the trees and flowers we collected were burned in the recent wildfires.  This plant, an Onosmodium helleri is endemic to Travis and surrounding counties of Central Texas.  It was found on a friend's property.  In the herbarium there were only six other specimens of this plant, most from the late 19th Century.  So this was a good addition to the collection.  Thanks Malcolm and Charlie. 

The process of preserving and mounting botany specimens takes months. 

After collecting, pressing and drying them, the specimens were placed in a freezer for three days to kill any bugs.  Bugs are the  enemy of any herbarium - they can devastate a collection.  Then the preliminary in-field identification is verified or corrected which can be an easy task or a time-consuming process involving research in books and/or in the herbarium.  Once identified, a detailed label is created naming the plant genus, family and species, telling the location (State, county, road, GPS coordinates, description of terrain and other relevant information), the dates of collection and identification, the botanist who ID'd the plant, and the collector(s).  In the mounting room it all comes together, the plant specimen, the label and a unique bar code.

Here is one I was happy to see because it made me recall the nearby town, the river and the beautiful cottonwood trees that were filling the air with cotton.  The branches were way too high to reach but luckily there was some recent windfall which yielded a rather lovely specimen:

Pretty isn't it?  I like knowing that it will be in the herbarium in perpetuity for scientists anywhere to access and study. 

Here is how the specimens are mounted before they are stored.

Glue is drizzled in a fine stream all over the back of the specimen.  Then using tweezers it is carefully placed on a sheet of acid free paper.  The label and bar code are affixed, as well as a packet for seeds.  The label always goes in the lower right hand corner.  In the field we try to keep that in mind when cutting and pressing a specimen.  It helps to leave room for the label.  Then the specimen is covered with wax paper over which weights are placed.  These are removed when the glue is dry.

Only then does the specimen get filed.  The herbarium consists of several floors of temperature-controlled sealed rooms full of huge cabinets.  The cabinets are in deep columns.  To enter a stack you have to crank an opening and then walk in to the long row of cabinets.  All flora are arranged by family, then genus and finally by species.  Dates are irrelevant.  In one file folder of cottonwood, for example, there might be specimens from the 1800's mixed with specimens from this year. 

And that is today's herbarium tour.  Any questions? For more on how specimens are pressed and dried see the June 20 entry on A Primer on Preserving Specimens. 

Pressing matters

For my XX birthday, Daniel gave me two presses.  The one on the left is a field press for taking on location.  The one on the right is for drying.  The difference is the outer wooden covers.  The field press is solid, the drying press is lattice.  Otherwise the same.   The straps can be cinched very tight.  It helps to sit on the press while tightening so the closure is very secure and the plants flatten nicely. 

I took the press on a recent trip to California.  I was in Oakland and then Palm Springs.  In Oakland I collected a few specimens.  Here is the first I collected.  My first "number" as botanists say.  I sent a photo to Daniel and he wrote back that it looked like rosinweed or Grindella squarossa.  Was it sticky?  Oh yeah like glue.  He then did a little research and found that while common, it hadn't been recorded as a coastal plant or in Alameda County.  So I was happy that my first number is a country record!

Grindella squarossa

Marie's number 1

 In Palm Springs I collected this from my friend's front yard.  I like specimens like this because they have it all going on -- leaves, flowers and fruit, although you can't see the leaves here.  Daniel tells me this is a Caesalpenia.  

Caesalpenia

 Here is my field book.  It's exactly like the ones Daniel has used for years.  In it I will record every specimen I collect including notes on terrain as well as GPS coordinates.

So I am off to a good start as an amateur botanist.  Thanks Daniel.  This was the best gift ever! 

Does this make my country look ugly?

As we traveled across the US we saw very few wind farms.  We actually expected to see many more, especially in the Plains states where the wind blows virtually unobstructed.  In past travels to California I have seen the massive wind farms outside of Palm Springs.  I always find those windmills to be beautiful, especially when their graceful blades are turning as they nearly always seem to be.  Many communities fight the wind farms saying they are ugly and destroy the viewshed.  Here are some farms we saw.

Washington

Pennsylvania

We also saw many old-fashioned windmills on ranches all over.  Does this windmill improve or detract from the landscape?  Does it evoke any feelings? 

 An old wind mill stands in the shadow of the new wind turbines in a still developing wind farm. 

North Dakota

All across the country, those who have moved from country to town erect little faux windmills in their yards.  What are they trying to recapture?  The romance of the open range?  Maybe it's the beauty of making nature work for us without destroying the planet at the same time.  

Will future generations buy faux wind turbines for their yards?  Will artists paint them as the Dutch did?  Or do wind farms make our country look ugly? 

The numbers you've been wondering about...plus more from Ptown

...from our coast to coast and back again collecting trip, these just in, drum roll please...

nights in motels                    23
nights camping                      2
lodging costs              1,361.20

miles driven                     7,539

miles driven by Marie            0

breakdowns                           1

accidents/tickets                     0

mishaps on levees                  2

fuel costs                    2,326.37
food costs                      965.26
cheapest motel                 52.08
most exp motel                99.51
bed bugs                                0
arguments/snit fits                  0
and best of all...
specimens collected           724!

...and I would do it again in a heartbeat.

And now, some more roadside floral attractions in Ptown.

This doesn't belong but I just had to include it.  No retouching, this is for real.  No lie.

                  

Not exactly roadside, but..

...you understand.  These are from a supermarket bouquet.

From the garden...

A lady down the street puts out a little table of cut flowers and a small cooler of herbs with an honor box to pay for them.  Here is $4.00 worth.  (I still owe her 50 cents but I am good for it).

A friend's dreamy chamomile lawn,

And this, just down the street.  We should all love our homes the way these owners do.

Greetings from Provincetown, MA.

We made it!

It was an easy fix to the transmission, so that was good. 

The highlight of Warren, PA was a used bookstore.  Then owner had made these wonderful paper sculptures of great authors.  He called the collection Mount Readmore. 

We left Warren, PA and headed home feeling kind of bittersweet.  Collecting was over for the trip.  It was all about getting home.  I'd like to say it was great seeing the GWB at 8:45 last night, but truthfully, I'd be happy staying on the road, camping and collecting for a while longer.  But we both have work to do in NY.

Over the next few weeks we are going to go through photos.  We have a few more stories to share.  And I will be going to the Cape for a while to just chill out.  Daniel will be going to Maine and may blog from there.  As the specimens make their way through the NYBG process of identification, mounting and storing there will be more stories to tell.

And, no doubt, Daniel and I will be back on the road this fall for some weekend collecting trips. So this is a way of saying that the blog is not over, but there won't be daily updates until our next big trip.  We have had more than 1500 page views so that means that you stayed with us through the journey.  Thanks for that -- it made us feel connected to something bigger than where we were at the moment.

The blog has been really fun for us so I know we will keep it going.  Several of you wrote to say the photos are good.  Daniel shares credit for that.  He took many of them.  

So the cris-cross country trip is complete.  In the next few days I will make a final accounting -- miles driven, specimens collected etc.  Maybe a recap on all the glam motels.  Check back in once in a while.

Now I leave you with this thought,

There are no wrong turns when the journey is the destination