It’s a mixed bag of berries!

To have the sense of knowing when to make a seed collection after scouting a site can be somewhat difficult – to say the least. We spend time keeping an eye on a certain species, becoming connected to the species and eager to see the fruits ripen so we can begin our collection. I became very excited about our long anticipated collection of Ribes cereum. We traveled to the site ready to start a collection and discovered the first cluster of shrubs were completely and entirely barren. I was in awe and disbelief that almost one week ago the shrubs were loaded with berries – in every direction we had looked there were berry filled shrubs. Immediately, we searched the whole park in hopes of finding a few shrubs with enough fruits to still make a great collection.

Every single Ribes cereum shrub was without a single berry. There are many deer, elk, bears, and other animals found throughout this park. Our thoughts are the animals must be eating these ripe red berries, which must be a nice change to their diet. It’s good to know that even though it’s been a very hot and dry summer, the animals are finding enough to eat!

Although we missed this opportunity to make a collection of this species for this year, we are on a roll, increasing our number of collections for the year. Berries are a favorite collection, not only for CLM interns, but for wildlife as well. Collecting berries for Seeds of Success is so much fun! I can’t wait until we find our next berry patch! Below are a few of my favorite collections so far this year.