Specimens

Day 11: I have to admit that I am sometimes slow in getting things out of my plant press to dispatch to their permanent homes. In this case, I was motivated by an inquiry from another botanist about Aspidotis densa, the "new" fern my botany partners and I discovered in the Park this last summer. We conducted an extensive search to determine that the population of the species could support taking two specimens. There were not enough examples to collect three (the preferred number), but in any case, one of these will be retained for the Park's own herbarium and one will be sent to WTU (Burke). For this photo, it has been necessary to remove information regarding the exact location from the labels as a deterrent to less scrupulous collectors (and believe me, I have met a few). I'm looking forward to next year's "botany season," and the possibility of adding even more species to the Park's inventory.