Little Home on the Prairie

Two and a half months since we have started our journey at the prairie…. here is what I have learned so far.

  • The Prairie sun is unforgiving and is not there to protect you – Wear Sunscreen!
  • Nathan is 100% a botanist and thinks wildlife is second class
  • Dade will flip over every Asclepias syriaca leaf he sees to find Monarch caterpillars
  • Thick wool socks are the only acceptable pair of socks against chiggers
  • Harsha is amazing at poems and working with the youth conservation corp
Clear skies and sunshine on-top of Sand Ridge Prairie at Midewin

Vegetation monitoring

Wow did we learn a lot of prairie plants this month. Let me just say, the volunteers, specialists, and technicians at Midewin know all, they are the superior plant experts and you should go to them for every plant question that you have. They helped me so much with my plant identification during the vegetation monitoring process and now I feel 100% more confident on my prairie plant id skills. The more time we spent outside learning plants the more I came to appreciate the plants in the prairies.

Silphium lacinatum is the most charismatic plant on the prairie and stands taller than me most of the time.

Monarda? Oh she’s a cutie with her little purple Lorax-treelike flowers! Silphium laciniatum? Do you mean the most charismatic plant on the prairie shooting its stem over my head with yellow flowers? Eryngium yuccifolium? With a name like that (or Rattlesnake Master!) how could I not love it! Even if it stabs me through my pants every step that I take at the SE Bison Pasture. Bouteloua?! It took me forever to figure out how to spell it but look at it! Just the name makes me happy and the way that the seeds hang off of the stem only increases its charm! Needless to say learning all of these plants and more has been a very fulfilling part of July here on the Prairie.

Monarda fistulosa with her little purple Lorax-like flowers.

He speaks Parseltongue

Harry Potter would be proud of us if he saw our ssssnake charming abilities out here at Midewin. Holding, identifying, and measuring snakes out in the hot sun is a battle enough, and not having a single bite incident is even more of an accomplishment. If we don’t make it as restoration specialists we definitely have the skills to becoming a Parseltongue expert at Hogwarts. Someone go call Dumbledore!

The snakes did not really appreciate us lifting up their homes and disturbing their slumber in the mid-afternoon sun… but after a bit of struggle they eventually would cozy up to us and let us measure them before slithering away back into the dense prairie vegetation. We even got to see a Fox Snake, a priority species listed at Midewin. When we went to lift the board to look for snakes he scared me and Nathan just from the sheer size of him (he was very big), but the wildlife technician with us held him perfectly proved to us snakes are not as bad as people make them out to be. Although I think Nathan still prefers plants.

Carex…. you think you got it, then you don’t

Collecting seed was in high gear this month for Carex and Juncus species and at Midewin there are a lot of different options and they all look the same. We have spent many afternoons looking at specific seeds of a carex to figure out what species they are compared to the other carex that we found at the same site. Luckily we are starting to learn the subtle differences of the Carex and Juncus families.

Picture shared with us to help us identify the different Juncus species at Midewin.

On the bright side, becoming more experienced in identifying these different species has prepared us immensely for the upcoming seed collection of the asteracea family because they also all look very similar to one another. So bring on the yellow flowers! We have our Flora of the Chicago Region locked and loaded and ready to be used!

Oh its mechanical…. someone call Dade

Midewin is a little different than other national forests around the country because they do everything in house. Meaning all of the seed that we collect is cleaned, stored, and replanted on site and is not shipped anywhere else. So along with our seed collection and plant identifying tasks we also regularly help out with the horticulture aspect as well. Lately we have been helping the horticulturist and technicians out at the River Road seed beds, planting plugs, mulching, weeding, and watering the plants to make sure they are surviving the hot prairie days. We have been using big power tools like augers and UTVs, little hand tools like shovels and rakes, and really whatever we have to get stubborn weeds from encroaching on our precious plants.

Needless to say, we get our hands DIRTY, especially Dade because he doesn’t believe in gloves. Dade is the handy man though, a little bob the builder minus the hammer. He is the augering king, bench sanding tycoon, and gate unlocking emperor all in one. Basically when we can’t handle a big physical problem…. we know who to call. And our seed beds look amazing because of it.

Weed to mulch project we did at Wauponsee trailhead.

Fieldtrips to Markham

Markham, IL is a south west suburb of Chicago no more than a 30 minute drive from downtown on a good day (no traffic). It has a pretty mixed demographic of African Americans, Latinos, and White families of lower to middle class status. Basically its is all houses and expressways. Except for this a few small patches of prairie next to I-55 and suburban houses. This is the Indian Boundary Prairie run by The Nature Conservancy.

The entire restoration team from Midewin got the opportunity to drive out to them, see their remnant and restored prairies, and talk to them about their experiences, challenges, and solutions to restoration work. It was truly amazing to get the chance to talk to people working for a non-profit and see the similar but different work and approaches they take to managing prairie ecosystems. Also their prairies are GORGEOUS! You could not even tell it was next to a highway if you turned the other way! Everyone talked about weed management practices, wildlife practices, different plants that we saw or wanted to repopulate in our respective areas, their career pathways to where they are now, even outreach programs that they are trying to implicate. Its crazy to think that this nice prairie is in the middle of a chicago suburb and not many people know about it, a specialist that grew up in the area said she did not even know it existed and the prairie has been there since the 1970s!

The ability to talk to them and learn more about their projects and tell them about ours really inspired a lot of people on the restoration team. Knowledge really is best when shared with other people so I am hoping they got as much out of meeting as I did. We are ready to take on the Prairie in August. Bring on the sun!

After the Fire: Allium gooddingii

It’s no surprise that wildfires can have devastating impacts on people, wildlife, and the ecosystem. In high-severity wildfires, habitats are destroyed causing susceptible populations to decline. Such is the case for a rare species of wild onion, Allium gooddingii, better known as Gooding’s onion.

Allium gooddingii is an endemic plant to New Mexico and Arizona where it generally grows under the canopy of high-elevation mixed conifer and spruce forest. In New Mexico, A. gooddingii can be found at Gilia and Lincoln National Forest. However, over 95% of A. gooddingii populations and their habitats have been heavily burned by wildfires since 2006 (Roth 2020). As a result of the wildfires, A. gooddingii is a Forest Sensitive Species and is listed as endangered species by the State of New Mexico (Roth 2020).

Allium gooddingii at Lincoln National Forest

On Lincoln National Forest, A. gooddingii can only be found at the Smokey Bear Ranger District at elevations above 10,000 feet. In recent years, large populations in the district have burned in two wildfires: the Little Bear Fire (2012) and Three Rivers Fire (2021). The Little Bear Fire burned a total of 44,330 acres in the Southern Sierra Blanca regions of LNF, including 80% of known A. gooddingii sites (Roth 2020). In addition, the Three Rivers Fire burned more than 7,000 acres of LNF, burning into the Little Bear burn scar. Both fires left the species’ habitat without any canopy cover.

With the loss of canopy cover, the long-persistent of these plants is questionable. Therefore, surveys are carried out to monitor the impacts of fire on A. gooddingii populations. Luckily, I had the opportunity to join the Wildlife Crew in my district and partake in the surveys over several days. The surveys entailed heading to different scouting points within areas that were either burned by the Little Bear, Three Rivers, or not burned at all. At each point, the number of A. gooddingii individuals were counted within a 10 meter radial plot.

However, it was not an easy task getting to the different points. We had to hike down and up several steep slopes at an elevation of 11,000 feet to get to the points. Despite the challenging hikes, we completed all 16 scouting points. Later in the season, the Wildlife Crew will head back and collect seeds to be used for future restoration in LNF.

The Wildlife Crew and Peter surveying the onion species in a non burned area.

Pollinators

One of the most abundant populations I’ve seen at Three Rivers burn scar had several pollinators roaming around. I was able to capture a few.

Literature Cited

Roth, D. 2020. Status report. Goodding’s onion (Allium gooddingii). Gila and Lincoln National Forest, NM. Unpublished report prepared by the EMNRD-Forestry Division, Santa Fe, NM for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Region 2, Albuquerque, NM. http://www.emnrd.state.nm.us/SFD/ForestMgt/endangeredandrareplantreports.html

Maria like Pariah

July is a month to celebrate—America’s independence, the heat of the summer before it gets too old, interns (national intern day is July 27th, according to nationaltoday.com). In the botany department at Tonasket ranger district, we celebrated finishing our ongoing survey of an inhospitable 10-ish mile stream system, Maria’s (pronounced Mariah’s) Creek. At times, I believed that the spirit of Maria was alive and well, out for mine and my coworkers’ blood. And blood she got.

Maria’s Creek is situated within a canyon, adjacent to a well-traveled USFS road. Though the road sees plenty of traffic, most of the stream seems to have been abandoned by humankind many years ago. The creek is narrow, almost as deep as it is wide in most spots. As inhospitable as it is to someone like me, it is a haven for plants, particularly the varieties with thorns and other lines of defense. Each bank of Maria’s creek is thick with Rosa woodsii, Ribes lacustre, with scattered surprise spots of Urdica dioica. Bravely, we fought our way through the waist-high roses and pushed past patches of stinging nettle to search for sensitive plants that prefer to make riparian habitats their home.

Maria didn’t want to make things too easy for us, though, and bush whacking can be tedious but not always hazardous. Her preferred method of spicing up the “trail” was through fallen trees. In certain spots, crisscrossing logs, fallen from the canyon side far above, were so dense there were no other options but to hop from trunk to branch, praying neither the rotting wood nor your shaky balance gave out. On our first day surveying the creek, David fell victim to a log that had been there a bit too long to be of much support; falling straight into the running stream below. Perhaps the rest of us should have taken that as a prediction for how the rest of the day would go.

Sweaty, bruised, and battered, the crew made it two and a half miles on our first day in the creek. Judging by the downtrodden feeling in the pit of my stomach, my spirit felt like we had made it much farther. Over the next two weeks, we took breaks to visit nicer creeks and wetlands in search of our target species, but always knew Maria was there, sadistically waiting for our return. Thirteen days after that first journey, the crew split up to finish our last few miles of Maria’s Creek surveys. That day, David and I were joined by some exceedingly bold cows, who moo’ed us towards our finish line.

Those of us not driving snoozed peacefully in the rig on our way back to the office that day, knowing we had conquered the beast, praying she doesn’t have co-conspirators elsewhere in our project area, lying in wait for unsuspecting botanists to get stuck in their trap. In my mind, July 18th will live on as a personal day of celebration. The day we said adieu to Maria’s Creek.

A Labor of Love

This past month has been a busy one up in the San Bernardino National Forest as we have become involved in a kaleidoscope of projects all across the mountain. With the season heating up both literally and figuratively a large amount of the target species on our list are getting close for seed collection. Due to this, Karen and I have made it top priority to get as many of our target species pressed before they become nothing more than husks of cellulose. This has led us to spending quite a bit of time in tracking down the most suitable specimen for pressing at each monitoring site leading us into various areas ranging from thick pinyon forests to arid desert flats. As of current we have collected a decent number of specimens from a few of our target sites such as P.centranthifolius, S.columbariae, S.speciosa, E.elymoides, and L.andersonii. In addition to this, we have learned how to mount completed specimens along with creating the identification tag that correlates to each species. It has been rather exciting adding collections to the Big Bear Herbarium especially species not documented in certain areas as it will in turn, assist future teams on where and when to find a certain species. The work is labor intensive but rewarding, sometimes we spend quite some time digging species out of the ground attempting to preserve the root as best as we can. From muggy bug-ridden meadows to rocky desert flats, we can often be found hunched over in the dirt digging fervently to remove these prime specimens before they wither away.

Also, some exciting news is we have completed our seed collection for S.columbariae with a total of 44,460 seeds gathered which is above the target goal of 30,000 needed! We were able to find, along with the help of our mentor Drew a large population of this species near the Santa Ana River a few hours from Big Bear. Along with the seed we gathered from other smaller sites we were extremely excited about the accomplishment. As of right now we have some seed processing to do as well for the grasses, so we are eager to see how much we have gathered and whether site revisitation is needed after evaluation.

Image: Karen and I collecting a P.centranthifolius specimen for pressing in Holcomb Valley, CA.
Image: Karen processing S.columbariae seed using different sized mesh strainers. Gloves are necessary as the flower buds are prickly.
Image: Seed that has finished being processed and accessioned ready to be placed in the seed cooler.

Another project we have focused on is assisting in the remodel of the Lytle Creek nursery to assist it in improving Phytophera BMP protocols and growing capacity. Our responsibility in this project was to remove two large Asclepias fasicularis beds and to transplant the milkweeds into pots for future nursery uses. It was lovely conducting this project as the place was filled with monarchs and their caterpillars. When removal was taking place, we took great care in checking if any of the plants had larvae or eggs and would treat them more gingerly. We spent the day disinfecting pots and utensils while also getting dirty in the mud!

Image: Me surrounded by a sea of Asclepias fasicularis in need of removal at Lytle Creek Nursery.
Image: A monarch butterfly caterpillar looking cute as ever. This was my first time seeing one and I was very excited about it!

Another major endeavor conducted this month was the collection and transportation of 100s of pounds of mulch to prepare for a restoration project taking place in Lake Arrowhead towards the end of September. This project was a day long endeavor and was incredibly labor intensive as it took a total of 4 hours to load and unload the mulch from trailer to restoration site. The mulch harvested for this project was aged for a few years before use, leading to the development of long strings of mycelium undergrowth trapped in each pile. With such a rich and healthy pile to harvest from I am hopeful that the nursery plants planted in this earth will thrive. The location specifically of the restoration site is actually near the Northshore cabin where I currently reside, and I am excited to see the desolate patch of earth damaged by OHV use near the campground become rich in healthy native species again.

Image 3: Gathering and transporting mulch for a new MDLP restoration site at Lake Arrowhead. To the far left we have Kobe Bench a Biological Science Technician who has assisted us with seed collection and monitoring. In between Karen and I is Lily Ortega a Biological Science Technician who works in botany mapping rare plant species.

Overall, this month has been a blast and as I’ve continued working in this field it has become apparent that there is plenty of love and care put in place for the local plant communities in the San Bernardino National Forest. Everyone plays a part in the restoration and botany team in aiding in accomplishing our goals and it’s been lovely working with the diverse set of individuals found in different sectors in forestry. While the projects at times may be difficult or physically tiring the results are rewarding and I am excited to continue contributing my part in helping protect the habitats of the native flora found in this stunningly diverse forest.

An Ant in a Cruel World

Picture this… You are a simple ant, living your life in the Bitterroot mountains of western Montana. You have not a care in the world – except to help feed your hundreds of family members and to protect your queen. “Hm this looks like a cool place, possibly lots to eat!”, you exclaim as you stumble upon a wide open fen.

“What is this sugary looking delectable delight? I’ll just have a little taste, then I’ll go let the others know!” You trek the long distance over the Carex, Mimulus, Cinquefoil, and more.

“Wow look at all of this! I’m gonna feed my family forever!” Your little ant brain fills you with joy as you make your way to the new delicious plant. You climb up the stem, and although it’s a bit sticky, you don’t think much of it, very few things that are worth getting are easy to get – you rationalize to yourself. “What is this, what is going on??” As you step onto the leaf, you find yourself stuck in the glandular hairs. You can’t move. Your body starts to tingle, and you come to the realization that you are not leaving.

The English Sundew strikes again. Drosera anglica uses its long tentacles to trap another victim. At least – this is what I imagine happens with this carnivorous plant, although it’s likely much less dramatic than this. On one of our monitoring projects this month, we checked out a population of this English Sundew, and found that is was more than double the size that it was presumed to be a few years ago, and whether it has actually grown that much, or if it just wasn’t documented, we are unsure, but the population size was massive – possibly up to 10,000 individuals! I have seen very few carnivorous plants in person, and this was so amazing to see such a huge population of this sensitive species. This species is cool because it can actually be found in many places throughout the world from Alaska to Hawaii to Japan to Southern Europe at higher elevations. This plant also specifically grows with sphagnum moss, which is not very common in Montana, so this is an interesting find. Because this is a carnivorous plant, it does not photosynthesize, and relies almost solely on the nutrients obtained from insects that find themselves caught in their hairs. They also self fertilize, so they do not need to be pollinated, therefore saving maximum amount of food for their sustenance. Overall this plant is really amazing, and it never ceases to amaze me that nature always finds a way to survive!

https://www.fs.usda.gov/wildflowers/plant-of-the-week/drosera_anglica.shtml

Sometimes you just don’t know what to say

This past month has truly been a rollercoaster of emotions. The job itself is incredibly rewarding and as the time goes on I become more confident in my abilities here. Of course there have been plenty of downs to the position but as we further into the season it is much easier to mitigate them. 

We have had some difficult work this past month which included the removal of some of the most annoying invasives to exist including himalayan blackberry and slender false brome. One you have to dig into the roots to completely treat the issue while the other you get to crawl on your hands and knees hand picking along a river bed for hours. The grueling heat certainly didn’t help. Although the conditions were less than pleasant, the work was redeeming because of the basic concept of removing pesky invasives for the natives to flourish. If there is one thing that I can take away from this job it’s that one can take joy just from the moral output of the activity. Even if the task itself is incredibly arduous you can at least remember the fact that the work you’re doing has some sort of purpose. 

Seed collection this past month has fastly ramped up as well as the heat. The work only seems like it will become more involved and busy which is quite exciting. Of course some seed collection species are more interesting to collect than others. For example, when collecting the columbine (Aquilegia formosa) it is really fun to watch all of the tiny seeds drop out of the flower head into the bag sort of wondering how many will be in the batch. On the other hand there are collection species like big deervetch (Hosackia crassifolia) pods are picked off like apples and transferred to a big bag. While this collection is pretty efficient it can get tedious quickly. Then there are species that are just an absolute pain to collect like farewell to spring (Clarkia amoena). My distaste for this collection solely comes down to how difficult it is to spot these guys. The seed collection itself isn’t actually terrible, similar to that of a pea, however it is the identification and monitoring that can cause strife. These little pests are always hiding in the crags and are incredibly low to the ground blending in with just about every other basal flower or stem. Still it can be nice when you find a big stand of them in a rather unassuming place. 

Time is going by fast now and with only a couple months left in the internship I’m still hoping to expand my knowledge within the plant world. It’s been an incredible experience so far not just in knowledge but also community and like-mindedness. The work starts to feel like a widely connected network of people all working towards the same goal. You learn and you just keep learning. The people that you meet endow unto you the knowledge unknown prior while you are able to do the same to them. It’s hard to think of a more broad learning environment than a national forest and if anything I can simply just be grateful for that. 

Top of Mount Bailey
The beautiful Umpqua skyline
Highway kitten that was rescued

How to Get Poisoned in the Woods

By and large, seed collecting here in central Idaho has been going quite well. We’ve picked bags and bags of fleabanes, needlegrass, wheatgrass, and fiddlenecks. The season has been a bit behind so far, but the last few weeks, our plants must have finally heard the wake-up call of summer and decided to finally get in motion. All of a sudden, we went from having no seeds to gather to running all over the forest, trying to keep up with everything!

There are a handful of plants that are still evading us, of course. One of those is Lathyrus lanszwertii, the Nevada pea. We’ve followed a handful of leads for it, all of which turned out to be dead ends – including a half-hour drive on a very bumpy mountain road to be taunted by a patch of Lathyrus pauciflorus, the few-flowered pea. (Guess how much luck we’d have trying to collect 30,000 seeds from that?) And when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, so Dan and I have been on high alert for anything that vaguely resembles this enigmatic legume. Our curiosity (read: desperation) led us last week into a decent bit of misadventure.

Early Wednesday morning, while scouting for wild mint (Agastache urticifolia), I followed the trail a little farther up the streambank to find a string of brilliant purple flowers growing among the alders. Could this finally be our pea? I hopped over the rocks to pick a flower off and scour our field guide. It had five petals, reflexed backwards, pinnate leaves, a vining growth form – this had to be it. But the stamens grew in a dense, tangled knot around the center of the flower. That’s strange, I thought. Fabaceae has just a handful of stamens and they’re fused to each other.

We started searching the guide for any kind of purple flowers. Suddenly, Dan insisted, “Drop that thing on the ground right now.”

“What?” I said.

“Get rid of it! That’s called monkshood. Haven’t you ever heard of it?”

“No…?”

“It’s, like, the most poisonous plant in the West. Eating one flower is enough to knock you dead. It’ll absorb through skin, too.”

Aconitum columbianum – watch out for this one!

Holy moly! This stuff is no joke. I did some digging on the internet, and sure enough, the lethal dose of monkshood is about a gram. It turns out its Latin name, Aconitum, means “without suffering” because its symptoms appear within minutes, and you die within a few hours. People have actually died from just skin contact with it, although all the reports seemed to be from gardeners who planted it (!?) and were working amidst it for hours on end. We hopped in the jeep and quickly drove back to our house to shower off. After scrubbing our hands with every kind of soap we owned and satisfying ourselves that we weren’t likely to die, we headed back out to cautiously get back to work – and, as any good botanist would do, to get a picture of it for our own plant photo album.

As they say, an adventure is a story that is miserable while you’re creating it and fun to tell in comfort later. And this sure was one of those! Make sure you know the poisonous plants that grow where you’re working and how to avoid them – and definitely don’t eat things you don’t recognize!

😉

My friend Collin: An Account of Events That Actually 100%, No Exaggeration, Happend

It was a hot summer day when I first met Collin. The sun was high, searing my back with radiation, meadowlarks sang on fenceposts, cows mooed cordial greetings. I’m working hard collecting biomass clippings at our Cedar Pass field cite, making sure to properly sort my species. Cool season grass in one bag, warm season in another, work which would otherwise be tedious if not for the sweet sweet strummings of Masayoshi Takanaka massaging my brain through pale earbuds.

I clip the final blade in my rectangular quadrat and grasp at my canteen. Out on the prairie it’s essential to remain hydrated, especially on certified steamers such as this. “Alass! ‘Tis empty! Whatever shall I do?” I announce to the world. A nearby cow responds with a sympathetic, “Moo”. I reel back, shaking a clenched fist at the sun, cursing the infernal radiator which sears my skin. I quickly come to my senses and remember the large cooler filled with ice cold water residing within our vehicle. With a newfound purpose I stagger towards the truck, trudging slowly through the brush. After what feels like 30 seconds I’m no more than 50 meters from the truck, and that’s when I see him.

A small creature dressed in an olive green burlap sack, hunched over like a gargoyle on the tailgate of our truck. “Must be the accursed sun playing tricks on mine eyes, a mirage of sorts, says I,” but as I continue my approach, the creature remains. I reach the truck and the creature stands to greet me. Assessing its features: pointed ears, knobby knees, and a long hooked nose, I conclude the nature of this odd organism; I have come face to face… with a goblin.

“Greetings friend,” the goblin croons, “I have been waiting for you.”

I respond calmly (for I am used to such things), “Salutations, what brings you round these here parts?”

“You, brave mage, I am here for you. My people have lived here for generations, supping from the earth its bountiful gifts. We have flourished by living in balance with the ecosystem which supports us. However, I am afraid our times of peace and prosper are nearing their end. For you see these lands are suffering; plagued by the industry of man, unable to sustain natural equilibrium. Our village seer foretells a great warming of the globe, which spells the eventual destruction of not just our people and our home, but of yours as well. I am but one herald of thousands, sent to seek people such as yourself and forewarn them of this forthcoming doom”.

“Tell me, wise one, what role do I have to play in this epic? What shall I do?”

“What you can, young one, what you can. My goblin intuition tells me the work you are doing here could potentially aid in maintaining the balance of these lands. Apocalyptic weather conditions await us, and the data you are collecting now will serve as a roadmap, or foundation for future generations to survive the storm. You must continue collecting and surveying, for knowledge and science are a powerful magic, human.”

“I will try my best,” I state, looking out at the beautiful landscape surrounding me.

I fill my flagon, and begin to return to my work. Just as I cross the barbed wire fence, I realize, I never asked the name of this brave messenger. “Wait! What is your name wise goblin?” I shout before even turning around, but as I do, a powerful gust of wind rips at my clothes, blowing off my hat. A cloud of dust bellows, swallowing the goblin. When the dust settles, he is gone.

Forlorn, I stare at a lone cloud in the sky. “Collin…” a voice calls out to me as the cloud slowly starts to form the shape of the creature, “my name is Collin, and child…”

“Yes?” I ask the sky.

“Tell my story.”

As I hear these final words, the Collin cloud slowly forms a thumbs up and smiles, revealing the sun hidden behind. I wince, raising my arm to shade my eyes. Once my vision refocuses, the cloud is gone, and Collin with it. For a second I doubt he was ever there to begin with; just the heat playing tricks on my mind. My heart, however, knows the truth.

“I will Collin… I will.”

Kneeling over to pick up my hat, I soak in the beauty of the earth for a brief moment before returning to my work, to save the world.

Grass’s Entry Into the World of High Fashion

Image courtesy of r/TreesWearingClothes

The tides of fashion and style are fast-moving and ever changing. We have moved on from the passé world of aerial cover and stem counts. The new, hip trends are biomass clipping and stem demography. An untrained eye might be wondering how these new styles differ from last season’s, but never fear, for I will spend the next 500 words explaining exactly why biomass clipping and stem demography are all the rage.

Biomass Clipping – Getting the perfect trim and avoiding split ends

In my journeys for the highest echelons of sophistication, I spent several weeks fully immersed in the world of biomass clipping. The process is quite simple. All you need is a pair of gardening shears, a quadrat elevated 15 cm above the ground, and bags to sort the clippings into. And also chaining pins to hold the quadrat in place as well as tape measures to ensure you’re clipping in the right place. And you can’t forget about a ruler to keep the shears level, a pencil, datasheets, and a box to hold everything in. Like I said, simple.

It is vitally important to make sure you correctly sort the clippings because, as any amateure would tell you, pattern mixing is an immediate faux-pas. My boss claims that we have to sort correctly because it is important to know exactly how much of the different plant functional groups there are in order to answer our research questions about drought and grazing, but I think we all know the main reason is because of fashion.

Once we have biomass clippings from all 162 plots, we take them back to the lab and put them in a drying oven, so that we can get their dry-weight. As someone who spends hours a day in a tanning bed, I can vouch for this method. It’s so important to dry yourself out, and it makes your skin look incredible. Now any street savvy fashionista may be thinking “plants don’t have skin, silly! How can you even make that comparison?” Well, darlings, the results speak for themselves. After spending 72 hours in a drying oven, the plants aren’t sagging anymore. They’re stiff and hold their shape beautifully.

Stem Demography – Bringing Pampering Into Your Fieldwork

Now we simply must move on to the wonderful world of stem demography and leaf stage development. The process of collecting this data involves measuring the culm and longest leaf height of specific blades of grass as well as counting stems in a very small quadrat. As a purveyor of style, there is nothing more in vogue than self care, and there is no better mode of self care than collecting stem demography and leaf stage development data.

Gone are the days of stem counting where you have to collect the data and write it down. When collecting stem demography data, you need only speak aloud the data you have collected and your partner writes it on the data sheet. One feels like a queen, speaking a completed data sheet into existence since when you went down to examine the grass, the data sheet was empty and upon coming up, it is full. Treating yourself luxuriously is one of the cornerstones of self care, and luxury is at its peak when you are face first in the dirt with sweat dripping straight onto the ground instead of down your body. I will be recommending this method to my spin class immediately, and I advise all of my dear readers to do the same.

Would you look at the time! I hate to leave you, my loves, but I must away. Keep an eye out for next week’s article about another trend Treans (Tree jeans)

Image courtesy of r/TreesWearingClothes

Don’t forget to walk the runway of life with purpose and panache 💋