I graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill on May 10. Our ceremony was at the North Carolina Botanical Garden. Just three weeks later I found myself back at the North Carolina Botanical Garden for training as a seed collector for the Seeds of Success program. I missed out on traveling to Chicago, but I was glad to spend a week with familiar faces around the NCBG.
I moved to Brooklyn at the end of the week, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised. I have adapted to big city living more easily than I expected.
Nobody told me Brooklyn would be beautiful.
They did mention that it would be crowded, however.
During our first week, we took a tour of the Greenbelt Native Plant Center on Staten Island, our home base for the internship. We planned out scouting excursions to Long Island, New Jersey, and Delaware, and we took short trips to city parks in The Bronx and Brooklyn to start getting familiar with the local habitats.
This week we traveled Long Island, exploring the walking dunes in Montauk, pine barrens in the David E. Sarnoff Preserve, beach fronts, swamps, and ponds besides. We have seen and discussed over 60 species in just the last week! Since I have spent most of my life in the mountains and Piedmont of North Carolina, most of these plants are new to me, especially the beach grasses, and the plants that tolerate salt or brackish waters. Six of these new(ish) species have been varieties of blueberry, huckleberry, and serviceberry. These are pretty easy to pick out, but will probably be hard to resist snacking on.
Tick habitat.
A Long Island pond.
Some species are getting very easy to identify, and some are still tricky, which is to be expected when looking at so many species in so little time. 60 species in a week sounds pretty good, but we will hopefully be collecting seed from around 180 species, so we’re only 1/3 of the way there. That sounds overwhelming, but not impossible.
Prior to this week, all grasses looked the same to me.
With another week of travel and a lot more practice, I am sure we will be ready when the seeds are ripe and it’s time to collect.
Katie Russell
Seeds of Success
Mid-Atlantic Regional Seed Bank