The Botanical Society of America is encouraging botanists to take selfies with, “I am a botanist!” signs to increase the visibility of botany. These have been all over my facebook newsfeed the last few days. All my friends are doing it, so I’m giving in to peer pressure. Also, since most of the #iamabotanist photos are taken by academics in labs, I figured it was worthwhile to add another kind of botany to the mix.
There are five rare plants within a couple hundred meters of me in this photo: Nerisyrenia hypercorax, Nama xylopodum, Dermatophyllum guadalupense, Mentzelia humilis var. guadalupensis, and Anulocaulis leiosolenus var. howardii. I was out with Mike Howard (for whom the Anulocaulis is named) to look at the Dermatophyllum–this population is an outlier from its known distribution and was recently reported to us by Lillis Urban. We wanted to get an idea of how large the population is, how the plants are doing (many were under attack from caterpillars and not looking good, unfortunately) and map its extent (it’s huge–well, compared to the other known populations, which isn’t saying much).