Hey everyone!

Unfortunately my internship is coming to an end.. I will be very sad to leave.. I have had an amazing time and learned so much throughout my time as a CLM intern! Not only have I learned a lot of new plants but I have increased my skills in plant identification by learning new techniques and skills.. I graduated with a degree in botany and I am now proud to say that I feel like a botanist! A junior botanist.. but none the less a botanist!

One of my favorite things that I I have gotten to do is camp at work sites which were in the middle of nowhere.. below is a picture of our campsite at Beatty Butte.. we were conducting vegetation surveys of plots which were previously burned (either wildfires or prescribed burns)..

Campsite at Beatty Butte

A beautiful view of Beatty Butte

The other intern, Amy and I feel very lucky to have worked with the fire ecologist for our first couple of months.. we got experience reading plots, using a specific scientific protocol and learned to identify a lot of the native species! The identification skills we gained by working with the fire ecologist helped us greatly when we started collected seeds!

Fire Ecology Plot

Amy and I have collected a lot of seeds!! One of my favorite sites where we collected seeds is Coleman Lake.. you can see the beautiful hills surrounding the dried up lake bed which and the area is filled with basin wildrye plants! We are estimating we got around 5 lbs of seed! Our mentor is going to use the extra seed to do a grow out next year.

Basin wildrye at Coleman Lake

The CLM internship has not only helped me to gain work skills but has helped me grow as a person in a number of ways! I have had an amazing time and I hope all the other interns did as well! Thanks!

Molly Baughman

Lakeview, OR

BLM