March 31, 2012 to April 24, 2012

Date: March 31 2012
Location: Mount Rainier, Washington State (Hugo Trail )

After Pack Forest, we went to Mount Rainier. There was a Western Hemlock growing in a decaying log. The creeks were an orangeish black and that was due to iron deposits that were inside of the water. At one of the ends of a creek there was a bright orange fungus that looked a lot like Jell-O but I was unable to identify it.

I learned that the difference between the two types of Oregon Grape is that the Mahonia aquifolium is a lot taller and grows 9-19 leaves per branch. We could not see it, but there was a berry thrush, which is a species of birds, related to the Robin. We were able to distinguish its call because it has a very monotone call that sounds like a long and loud beep from a machine. There was also a lot of Alaskan Cedar with drooping branches.

I did not take a lot of notes on this day and I think I wasn’t quite sure what I should’ve been writing about.

Species List:
Western Hemlock, Tsuga heterophylla
Oregon Grape, Mahonia aquifolium
Berry Thrush
Alaskan Cedar, Cupressus nootkatensis

Date: April 1 2012
Location: Nisqually Wildlife Refuge, Washington State

Today we went to the Nisqually Wildlife Refuge, which is an area that had been farmed for more than 100 years. The shape of the wildlife refuge was based on the shape of the human impact from the past. For example, they may have modified the trails and roads etc. but they only or mostly worked on what was already there. The Nisqually Wildlife Refuge was an estuary, a place where salt water met fresh water (Puget Sound & Mount Rainier) and this estuary is a critical habitat for Chinook Salmon.

It was probably around 40 degrees Fahrenheit. The red flowering current was within every 20 foot radius at the beginning of the trail (which I forgot to record the name.) At the beginning of the trail most of the trees were deciduous, like paper birch trees. Every 8 foot radius there was an Indian plum growing. At Pack Forest we also saw Indian plum but here at Nisqually there was more bloomed flowers on this plant. There was also quite a bit of salmon berry. The salmon berry was probably around 3-4 meters tall and while at Pack Forest the salmon berry plants only had one blooming flower, the ones at Nisqually had around 10-15. Two Rufous hummingbirds were also seen near the salmon berry. As we got closer to the estuary there was closer to 40-50 pink flowers on the salmon berry plant.

I saw a wide range of species of birds while I was there. There were song sparrows with tail feathers that were about 3 cm long and their body was about 5 cm long. There were rufous hummingbirds seen twice near the salmon berry plant. There was an American Robin, which wasn’t too exciting because those are seen all over Bellevue/Seattle. There was also a hawk that I saw at 11:30 am with a whitish upper breast and the mid/lower breast was brown and white spotted with long feathers on its chest and a somewhat striped tail, black beak, bright yellow eyes, and a wingspan of approximately four feet longer. This turned out to be a Juvenile Red-tailed Hawk. It puffed itss chest out a lot which I believe is a sign that it was threatened (probably because there was so many people around.) I also saw male blue herings flying close to the water of the estuary, probably about 3-4 feet above. The bird was about 3-4 feet long, probably closer to 3 and had a greyish blue back. Near the estuary, well on a rock in the middle of the estuary I saw a cormorant with a wingspan of 3 feet. It appeared to be a double crested cormorant there was two on the rock and when it flew it had a kink in its neck, and it also had an orange beak. It turns out that it was actually a pelagic cormorant because of an extremely faint white spot on it’s neck that I could not see before through the telescope since it’s head was turned the other way. Near the salmonberries not only was there hummingbirds but also sparrows with light vain trills and the sparrows were eating the gnats on the salmon berry. In that same salmonberry-infested area nears the estuary were black cap chickadees, which we could recognize by their calls and then confirm that they were black cap chickadees when we called them out using a recording of their calls on iBirds. We could see a bald eagles nest and some bald eagles through a telescope but the nest was probably 500 feet away from the trail.

There was an unidentified deciduous tree with opposite branching trees, which were between 40-50 feet tall, but I did not take enough notes on the tree to identify them later. There were also trees with a diameter of about 4-5 feet and 30 feet tall and were within every 15 foot radius. I couldn’t get close enough to them to really identify them, but still I did not take enough notes on them and as this is the beginning of the journal, today I was still not sure of exactly what I should’ve been writing down in my journal.

Species List:
Red flowering currant,
Paper birch trees,
Indian plum,
Salmonberry
Rufous hummingbird,
Song Sparrows,
American Sparrow,
Blue Hering
Pelagic Cormorant
Black cap Chickadees
Bald Eagles

Date: April 3, 2012
Location: University of Washington’s Botany Greenhouse

Today we went to the greenhouse that is on campus. It was the first time that I have ever been there. The class was split up in three stations.

Station One:

At the first station we all had to suck the pulp off this berry called the miracle berry. When we were done with the berry we were handed a lemon to suck on. The lemon tasted a lot sweeter than it usually would and almost tasted as sweet as lemonade, for me. For other people the lemon was a lot sweeter and eating the lemon tasted more like eating an orange. What the miracle berry does is it blocks the receptors in your mouth that make you taste when something is sour. You could drink a whole bottle of vinegar after eating the miracle berry and it would taste fine. But afterwards you would probably have a lot of issues because those receptors in your mouth that make you taste what is sour are actually to keep you from eating or eating too much of things that would be bad for you.
The miracle berry is interesting though because if you were diabetic you would could not add sugar to some foods and still get that sweet taste. What is even more interesting is how the plant uses chemicals to trick whatever animals will eat the berry. I am not sure why it would be important for a plant to trick whatever eats it to eat things that that animal would probably not usually eat.

At station one we also saw the hottest chili in the world that has 7% capsasin (which is what makes chilies hot). When you eat a chili the neurons in your mouth make it seem like your mouth is on fire because of the pain receptors ad the tissue damage that is happening in your mouth. There was also a type of chili that had two types of plants which were not distinguishable by their appearance and one of the plants had a really spicy chili while the other one was not spicy at all. It does cost the plant to make the capsasin, so it is possible that the capsasin is only made in some to stop fungi from growing or stop animals from eating it so that the ones that are not hot are safe.

Station Two
At the next station we saw the largest seed in the world. Well it was not the largest seed in the world but it was the seed of the plant that makes the largest seed in the world. The seed that we saw was twenty five pounds when really that plant can make a seed that is up to sixty pounds. The seed is from the Seichal Islands in the Indian oceans and the plant made a sort of vase/dish shape, probably for collecting water. The seed does not float and when it falls from the tree it lands right next to the tree it fell from. The smallest seed in the world would be easy to transport and disperse but it would not be able to carry many nutrients within the seed. Obviously this large seed is not easily transported and even though it falls right under it’s mother tree, because it is carrying so many necessary nutrients it can start growth right away.

The next plant we saw was from southern Mexico to Columbia and it is called the manstera deliciousa and is a skotropic tree. This tree grows toward darkness when it first starts growing and then as it matures it starts fighting for the sunlight. In the older trees there are many holes in the leaves that look somewhat like a caterpillar had been eating at them. I think those leaves are there so that sunlight goes through them and the newer trees which are growing towards the darkness stay away from those older trees and don’t grow too close to them because otherwise soon they will be competing for the sunlight. This plant produces a sweet pineapple like fruit that is very delicious (manstera deliciousa)

The next pant we saw was the dischidia which js from south east asia. This plant has hollow leaves which creates a CO2 chamber and is also a habitat for ants. When herbivores come to feed on the plant the ants come out and bite/sting them because they are trying to protect their domatia and their queen. The roots inside of the pods from the plant slurp up all of the nutrients that the ants leave behind so this is an example of how the plant works with the ants and the plant provides a habitat for the ants and the ants return the favor by leaving nutrients for the plant.
Another plant that we saw was called the eychornia, which have beautiful flowers and is from Brazil and because of its flowers it was introduced to Asia, Europe, and Africa. In Europe, Asia, and Africa this was an invasive weed like species because those continents did not have the Brazilian herbivores, which ate those plants. If you look at the leaves of the plant you will notice how they are very sail-like which is good for germination. The leaves catch the wind very easily and so it is easy for them to glide across the water. They have a root system, which sucks nutrients out of water, so this plant works well as part of a sewage system. We saw other aquatic plants too like the water lily nymphea with a detergent-like slippery inside to kill flies, but if the fly survives the nectar covers the flies. It was interesting to see the relationship of plants with other species and what they do to trick predators.

Station Three:
At the last station we first went to see the welwitchia which is from the Nambian desert in Southern Africa. The Nambian desert receives only 25 ml of rain every year. The welwitchia lant has reflective leaves so that the sun does not make the plant too hot so that it does not dry up. There was another plant called the gymneous plant and the one at UW was the size of one that is around 2000 years old. This one at the UW Greenhouse was watered regularly to see how fast it would grow and because it was given so much water and nutrients that it wouldn’t have gotten in the Nambian desert it grow much faster. This is a sign that it would rather live in this kind of climate than in the Nambian desert, which is probably true for a lot of plants. We also saw the carnivorous plants at this station and a few were cut open so we could see how they have decomposed some of the flies that they have tricked inside.

The main point of this trip was to see how plants can mask themselves and trick other plants which was something that was really interesting and something that I have not thought about often.

Species List:
Miracle Fruit, Synsepalum dulcificum
manstera delicious
dischidia
eychornia
welwitchia
Venus Fly Trap, Dionaea muscipula

Date: April 10, 2012
Location : Hitchcock Building on UW Seattle Campus Seattle, Washington State

Today we went to the Hitchcock Building on the UW Seattle Campus and examined plant specimens. We were there for a very short time, maybe around 20 minutes so there was not a lot of time to go in depth with many types of species... With the time given I was only able to take a few notes on one plant the Geranium Robertanum. I saw 7 specimens of this plant.

11 August 2002 North Cascades National Park Washington USA Skagit County
The leaves were split in three parts throughout the whole specimens and the flowers were pink with a deep brown stem.

7 June 1960 Multhoman County, Portland Oregon
The flowers of this Geranium Robertanum were deep pink, the stem was much yellower than that of the last sample and the leaves were very yellow but I think that may be due to the age of the specimen.

16 July 1999 British Columbia, Vancouver Island
The flowers of this Geranium Robertanum were dark pink/purple and the leaves were thicker and more abundant while the other plants the leaves were much more scarce.

14 August 1999 Pierce County
The flowers of this Geranium Robertanum were light pink and had thinner yellow leaves

28 April 2004 Whatcom County
This Geranium Robertanum was very bushy and the flowers were purpl and the stem was much thicker

7 August 2009 Skagit County
This Geranium Robertanum had leaves that were much more sparce and the leaves had deep red edges and even the leaf itself was a lot redder and was sort of a mix of a dark green and a dark red, there were no flowers on this plant though.

18 June 1962 Klickitat County
This Geranium Robertanum had orange and red leaves and the stem was red too. I could not tell if the plant itself was thick and had a lot of leaves or if I thought that because there was multiple Geranium Robertanums piled up ontop of the paper that they were pressed on. However, no flowers were visible.

26 May 2001 King County
This one was only green (an olive-ish green) and the leaves were dark green and the stem was thin and dark brown with a thin green line down the middle. The flowers (there were three of them) were deep purple with yellow towards the center.

Since we were there for such a short time I felt as though I didn’t have a lot of time to really take note on each of the specimens but what I did find interesting was that we had specimens of this plant from so long ago. And maybe 50 years ago, it would seem like this plant was not of extreme importance. But the information can be extremely useful in the future and so I was curious that people took so many detailed notes and carefully selected specimens knowing that this information would be useful in the future.

April 16 2012
Location: SE 23rd ST Bellevue Washington State 98004

There is a tree that is about forty-five feet tall and at first I thought that it was a Western White Pine but the cones are too round and the cone pollen is very short. The 4 inch needles spike out in groups of five. I have recorded the exact location of this tree in my field notebook and I will go back to it at a later date to identify it. About 100 feet South of the aforementioned tree there is a large madrone tree that is at least 30 feet tall and was easily recognizable by its waxy bark. After walking south of SE 23rd ST you will past 104th ST continue on SE 23rd ST and there will be a long row of tall Oregon Grape. The Oregon Grape is about 7 feet tall and has 9 leaves per branch. There was 105 feet Oregon Grape on this street. There was a lot of Oregon Grape and everywhere I go now I see Oregon Grape. There were a lot of plants that I saw that I wasn’t able to identify but the main point of this journal entry was that today I tried to go out and become familiar with the different species in my suburban neighborhood.

Species List:
Oregon Grape
Madrone

April 24, 2012
Location: Burke Museum, Seattle, Washington State

The best analogy for a natural history museum is a library archive with specimens of birds (but not only birds). The goal of the library is to create a two dimensional picture (the two dimensions being time and space) of pictures of birds (but not only birds). There are 2000-4000 specimens of birds per year added to the Burke Museum. The plumage pattern of the birds is observed in a way that they store them which is in a way that the backs are flat so it doesn’t get messed up when they are moving them. When they get a bird specimen which sometimes they go out and shoot and sometimes they pick them up off of the road, they remove all the guts and rotting parts and then stuff them with a stick and cotton. Volunteers do all the stuffing.

The way that they are stuffed makes the birds very flat, which is good for storage. But that is not a good way to see their skeletal structure. So they also have the skeletons of the bird so that you can see how they would actually look in real life. And just in case you will need tissue specimen from them a vial is stored for each species at -80 degrees Fahrenheit! So basically, they have everything that you might need per species but not together.

Posted on May 1, 2012 08:12 PM by anisajackson