The famous rapper(?) Supa Hot Fire once remarked “I ain’t a rapper, so quit rapping at me!” This line, now cemented in contemporary lore, previously described my feelings towards botany. If I had a dollar for each time I heard “I’m a little rusty but” or “could you say it in Latin please” I would need to find a hedge fund manager. Miraculously, this past month of work has seemingly thawed my cold indifference towards jargon and along the way, helped me learn more about plant identification than throughout my whole college career. After a successful beginning of the season we now stand ready to start our first collection with only a blogpost to hold us back. Successful identification of 17 different target species including fleabanes, lupines, cinquefoils, and buckwheats have taken long hours with floras in hand. I am looking forward to the transition from scouting to collecting as the season progresses, and having a visual representation of the fruits of our labor.

Check for that tomentose abaxial foliage or something like that,

Dan