Huddled next to my heater in the\u00a0dead of a Seattle Winter, I\u00a0was anxious and nervous. I was applying for a job…with no luck, when a former\u00a0TA of mine sent me\u00a0a link to\u00a0a website\u00a0called the Conservation and Land Management Internship Program.\u00a0I had no idea that six months down the road, I would be hiking around identifying plants on desert mesas in New Mexico. This blog marks the first month of my CLM Seeds of Success internship. Now I am away from home and everything I know, yet I don\u2019t have a single worry in my mind. I am comfortable and fully in the mindset of a total-exposure, no preparation crash course in native botany. This summer is going to be great!<\/p>\n
I received my education at the University of Washington where I studied Biology: Ecology, Evolution & Conservation. Most of my research has focused on primary succession on Mount St. Helens. The point being that up until this point I have studied many aspects of botany, but not so much the systematics that the SOS program\u00a0has to offer. I am so excited and I feel like I have learned more about classification in this last month, than my undergraduate career. I\u2019m not sure If any of you have had the feeling, but it\u2019s the \u201cOh man, I\u2019m gonna know soooo<\/strong> much more about classification in 6 months.\u201d \u2013kinda feeling. The \u201ckicker\u201d on top of that is there is so much more flora to see and learn if you travel 50 miles in any direction. New Mexico is a haven for speciation and geologic diversity.<\/p>\n Navajo Ethno-botanist Arnold Clifford explained \u201cIn botany you could go from one region to the other and be completely lost all over again\u201d. I\u00a0traveled with Arnold and my supervisor Sheila Williams to Simon Canyon, where our local BLM office was hosting field days for middle-school children. It was during my first two weeks that I really begun to understand the truth of those words. Sure, you find many species in both the Seattle and Farmington neck-of-the-woods (or shrubs); but for the most part, you better have your keying book at hand. As a whole, botany is a never-ending discipline.<\/p>\n It is also interesting how families and genera parallel each other in different climates. You may find Penstemons, Castillejas, Lupines, Firs and Mustards from both areas \u2013each similar to the other, but different enough to suggest subtle changes in morphology and reproduction, which alludes to hundreds of year\u2019s worth of adaptation. To be able to experience this in a natural environment is in itself absolutely<\/strong> worth every pain-stakingly tedious lab, exam and endless night of book-diving.<\/p>\n The day before my flight into Farmington, a good friend (and aspiring botanist) gave me his camera so I could document this amazing opportunity.\u00a0 Thank god I decided to take it since I sold mostly everything I had, and brought close to nothing with me. This new hobby just\u00a0might capture the shape of things to come.<\/p>\n\n\t\t