After the threat of Hurricane Joaquin here in North Carolina, our seed collections were stunted for a bit as the rain started pouring down and flooding many of the sites we were hoping to visit. Luckily, for the past two weeks, we’ve still been able to find some beautiful ecosystems that were mostly undamaged by the Joaquin storms that rolled through a few weeks back.
This week, Jake and I did a short three-day-long outing around North Carolina and Virginia. We expected to not find much harvestable seed after the storm, but boy, were we mistaken! We were able to get 7 collections in 1 day at Belle Isle State Park in Virginia, for one thing!
All of our seed collections after just 3 days of being out in the field (notice the plastic bag full of cloth bags – a bag of bags!).
This past week, we spent a lot of time in marshes in particular. We first visited the beautiful marshy mud flat at New Point Comfort Preserve, where we found our first collections thus far of glasswort (Salicornia depressa) and Carolina sealavender (Limonium carolinianum).
We then went on to visit Belle Isle State Park (where we commenced the 7 seed collections in one day) to find beautiful marshes outlined by forests of Eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana) and American holly (Ilex opaca) trees.
Belle Isle State Park marsh
The beautiful, blue berries of Juniperus virginiana
A sunlit boardwalk next to the marsh
Finally, we visited Vandell Preserve, where a marsh full of wildflowers and cattails has taken over the site of an old dam. There, we got to catch of glimpse of some very loud, swarming Canadian geese up in the sky while we collected seeds of hazel alder (Alnus serrulata) and small maid Marian (Rhexia nashii).
Collecting Rhexia nashii at Vandell Preserve
It was another beautiful week for us, trudging through mud and the mucky waters of marshes in the crisp autumn air! In addition to our collection success, we also just got word from our coworkers, Emily and Lauren, who are currently out in the field in northern Virginia and Maryland, that they beat our collections by a landslide…31 collections in 5 days!
Until next time,
Maggie Heraty