Hi all,

I have a tiny bit of bad news. My laptop deleted the whole album of pictures from my phone that I’ve taken since I moved here for my internship (“catastrophic failure”)! Unfortunately, that means not many pictures in this post – but we went on a collection trip last week, so I have some pictures from that one!

The past weeks have flown by. I’ve been here over a month already! It’s so crazy to me! But we’ve been putting in the hours for sure. Although our first collecting trip was more scouting than collecting, we managed to make collections of Vaccinium fuscatum in a few different locations, Bolboschoenus robustus from Buxton Woods Coastal Reserve, and a collection of roadside Gaillardia pulchella.

It never fails – every time I am making a collection, left with my thoughts and my counting, I think, “I’m getting paid to pick blueberries” or “Never in my life did I think that I would be doing this one day” or “I’ve never thought about this being a job” – (I hate using the word job for this internship… because it is such an amazing experience and a huge learning opportunity. I feel simply calling it a “job” comes with the negative connotations of a drudging 8-5, 40-hour work week, which although is true, it’s different).  And it blows my mind every single time. I love it! I recently visited my family over the weekend, and everyone asks me, “How’s the flower pickin’?” Honestly, it’s FANTASTIC! Everyone should want this position!

We went to a few other places during our first week, including Nags Head Woods Ecological Preserve, Kitty Hawk Woods Reserve, Pea Island, and Pine Island. We went to some really beautiful places, and it is a shame that I don’t have any photographs to show it!

Our second collecting trip was north to Virginia and Maryland. We started in the Delmarva Peninsula – I don’t know if any of you have been here, but taking the bridge/tunnel to get there is insane! It looks like you’re going to drive right off of the bridge into the water, but the road dips down under the water into a tunnel (TWICE)! Our group had so many engineering questions that we had to google later on. Did you know that there are such things as engineers that dive? Obviously, there are… but it didn’t even occur to me until we started asking these questions! We visited about 12 places on our collecting trip last week, including:

First Landing State Park, Chincoteague and Assateague National Wildlife Refuges, Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, Robinson Neck Preserve, Horn Point Laboratory – University of MD, Tuckahoe State Park, Calvert Cliffs State Park, Point Lookout State Park, Smallwood State Park, Mason Neck State Park, and Belle Isle State Park. We made collections of Juncus roemerianus (thanks for the splinters) and Glyceria striata. We had to take canoes and kayaks out for some of our collections, of which I promptly thought, “I’m getting paid to kayak right now.” It was first thing in the morning, we were at our first sight for the day – it was beautiful, and I was kayaking out to a population of Juncus roemerianus. If you think that isn’t awesome, you’re wrong.

Big news for me, I finally saw Monotropa uniflora in the wild! I remember learning it in class, and I would always admire it in field guides, but now I’ve finally seen it with my own eyes! I got so excited. It’s the little things.

From our kayak out to some Juncus roemerianus.

Some more personal side notes:

I had a dream about Bolboschoenus and Spartina the other night. I’m still undecided on if that’s a good or a bad thing.

What I dream about

I’m finding myself doing a lot more roadside botanizing than I used to do.

I’m talking about plants a lot more, from which I’ve found the general public is not very interested. WHATEVER.

My farmer’s tan is off the chain.

Thanks for reading!

Melanie