Author: Ethan Perry
On Saturday August 20 we met at the Sax-Zim Bog Welcome Center for our second annual plant collection event. The goal for our group of intrepid explorers was to collect plant specimens for the Olga Lakela herbarium at UMD. They will be used in botany classes, and will join the tens of thousands of older specimens in the collection that are available for research by scientists around the world in perpetuity.
From the Welcome Center we headed out a boardwalk into a bog of stunted black spruce. When we found plants in flower or in fruit, if the population was robust enough, we selected one to dig up by the roots with a trowel or soil knife. One of the highlights was round-leaved sundew, which had dark seed pods on stalks rising a few inches from their tiny red basal leaves.
Bogs only support a few plant species, but when we moved on to the edge of the upland and into the woods, so many plants greeted us that our progress down the trail was extremely slow. Our plastic collecting bag gradually filled with all sorts, from various sedges to ferns to a winterberry shrub.
Back at the Welcome Center we took refuge from the heat in the cool classroom and spread out the plant presses supplied by the herbarium. Each specimen was placed in newspaper between layers of blotting paper and cardboard, then strapped tight. Kept in a dry place, they will be fully cured in a few days. At another event this winter will take our pressed specimens and mount them onto archival paper. Maybe we will see you there!
Arrowhead Native Plant Explorers 