agerlach's Journal

I needed three observations to complete the phenology exercise. I found a bare tree on campus that had no leaves; a cluster of ivy that also had no leaves or flowers (so just bare); and a flowering plant with leaves (flower).

Unfortunately, I only have four observations for my Tree of Life Exercise. That's because I originally had a picture of a crow, then accidentally deleted it. So, that would have been a bird.

Regardless, I found the following taxa: plant (some large-leafed plant I can't identify); mammal (fox squirrel, a surprisingly hard find today ...); mollusk (like, what the hell. did not know those existed on campus); and fungi (a lichen).

So, for this week's exercise, I chose to stay close to campus. So far I've enjoyed doing that for all the assignments, because I want to challenge myself to re-examine everything I walk past every day in terms of the course.

So, for the chaparral part, I went to this one spot on Northside near the Graduate Theological Union that is a really quiet, great place to read. I go there a lot in the spring when I should be studying. Anyway, they have this overgrown pathway nearby that just has a ton of these chaparral-looking plants. I saw a lot of succulents, too, but I figured that those weren't as native. A lot of the trees looked really scrubby and scraggly. I guess that's what happens when there isn't a lot of water. I assume that some of the plants with waxy coating do so in order to conserve water.