Finally, the weather is beginning to stay warm in Carson City, Nevada. While we are still not making it out into the field more than a couple of times a week due to lots of unanticipated office work (which has composed a little less than half of our time here thus far), the few days we have spent collecting plant specimens and surveying for endangered populations have been both productive and blissful. The bulk of our work has been focused on locating and identifying populations of native plants which would make ideal seed collection sites in the following months to come. Needless to say, this has allowed of us to improve our plant identification, voucher specimen preparation, GPS, and GIS skill sets dramatically!

Additionally, our field work has been supplemented with a couple of public outreach events due to the occurrence of Earth Day. On Thursday of last week we spent the day in Truckee at the TREE program. Throughout the duration of this event we help educate and cultivate interest in hundreds of 4th graders about the importance of invasive weed management and native plant conservation through a series of interactive nature walks and educational games. The Sunday after which we all woke up early and worked a 12 and half hour day at Reno’s Earth Day festival. This was a tiring but rewarding experiences as we had an extremely extended opportunity to interact with droves of people and hear their feedback about the importance of our work as BLM botany interns!!!
Until next month,
J

p.s. It rained twice this month!