On September 7th, we packed these collections into a bear proof cooler with ice and started our long drive towards Coeur d’alene. The trip took us over 12 hours of total driving time, but, luckily, we were able to break up the trip and stay a night in Missoula, MT with Selah – a fellow CBG intern working at the Lolo NF. We were so thankful to Selah for letting us stay with her and enjoyed catching up and talking about how all of our summers were going. The next morning, we left for the nursery. 

At the nursery, we were able to take a tour around the facilities. Many of the seed cleaning tools we saw were similar to the ones at the Lucky Peak Nursery I visited during the CBG training in May, but it was still cool to see them again. It was also awesome to see all of the seedlings that were being grown in the greenhouses – especially the area filled with Whitebark Pine saplings. I was happy to see so much effort being done to help out the Whitebark Pine that are currently endangered due to blister rust. While we were there, we also saw the nursery workers collecting seed from some of the bulk seed plots using seed vacuums – which was very neat. There was also a very cute cat that we got to say hi to who was living at the nursery. After the tour, we gave them our collections of fruits, as well as some that Selah gave us to deliver from the Lolo NF. Finally, we picked up 9 large bags of seed that our supervisor ordered to be used at a superfund site and started the long journey back to Neihart, MT.

Another fun day was in the second half of the month – spending an entire day keying out plants with two of the Helena botany techs. We had joined them on some rare plant surveys before and always came to them with any questions – so they decided to visit our station to help us on some difficult species. To prepare for their visit, we collected some samples from a mining site and a burn area that we were considering collecting seed from. These samples were mostly all asters of some kind – some Solidago (goldenrod) and some purple asters. They also helped us make a final decision about the geum that was growing outside of the station (which I wrote about in my blog post last month). 

We used many different resources to accurately key out the samples. We had both the Montana Vascular Plant key as well as the Pacific Northwest key, the live samples, some pressed samples of geum and their seeds, and another key that was brought by the botany techs. We also referenced samples saved in an online herbarium. 

After a long day, we decided our collected samples were Eurybia merita, Solidago missouriensis, Solidago multiradiata, Solidago nemoralis, Symphyotrichum ciliolatum, and Geum aleppicum. Even then, many of these were a ‘best fit’ situation where they did not fully seem to fit in one species description – one would just match up better than the other possibilities. Plants can be tricky, so it was nice to have other people to discuss these samples with and multiple sources that we could use and compare to each other. 

We were off to a ~great~ start this month when we had a blowout driving down a mountain road! My fellow MCC intern and I found ourselves in a bit of a sticky situation when we were driving down a long Forest Service road and caught a flat tire. We luckily had one bar of service to look up how to get the tire off the back, but once we did, we were golden. It was definitely nerve racking doing this all on a hill, but the road continued at this incline for miles, so it was not feasible to keep driving to a flat location – less we want to damage the car. Either way, we fixed it and successfully changed our first tire! Peep the photo below – our Ram named “Gloria” – she has gotten us THROUGH IT this summer. Long Live Gloria!

Other than the tire debacle, this month has been quite calm. Mostly seed collection – with might I say some of the best views of the valley thus far. It’s kind of amazing to think about how much of the bitterroot I’ve explored given that I’ve only been here for 4 months. I’ve surveyed miles and miles of land, driven extensively throughout the mountains, and seen acres and acres of forest. I feel very connected to the land after working on it so intensely. I don’t know where I’ll end up next, but I doubt I’ll have lunch views quite like I do now. (Sometimes I’ll just stop for a minute to admire the landscape, please don’t fire me…)

It’s also been an amazing thing to see all of the wildlife. From Elk to Big Horn Sheep, we have seen so many amazing animals that we definitely don’t have back east. I have certainly become more observant when driving and hiking, and have found so many cool things in the forest. I think at first I was just so focused on the surveying because I wasn’t used to it. I had to sit and figure out so many plants because I wasn’t too sure what I was looking at yet. Now that I am pretty confident in my plant skills, I can be more observant to my surroundings. It’s a bit sad that just as I am more confident in my skills, the season is coming to an end. I of course still have a month here, but it’s sad to see my fellow seasonals leaving, the colors changing, and leaves falling. I will say I miss Northeastern fall (there is nothing quite like the Adirondacks changing colors in peak season), but the golden hues are ~almost~ as homey. I’m a bit nervous for the snow to begin in the valley, although it already has in the higher altitudes, but I am so excited to see how pretty it looks here with a fresh blanket of snow.