Floristic Checklist of Shenandoah River State Park (SHSP)'s Journal

Hey Everyone!

A little introduction for the first journal entry. I'm Matthew Sheik and I'm a graduate student at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. I'm studying environmental science and policy and my thesis is this here checklist. As I complete this project, I'm hoping to refine and improve my plant taxonomy skills and one day become an herbarium curator. As an undergraduate I got to work with 3 curators that have all helped me discover where I belong in the botanical community and have helped guide me to where I am today.

Although I've been to the park (from now on going to be mentioned as SHSP), this week on Friday (9 October 2020) I'll be collecting plants for the first time. I'm going to go out there once a week from now until everything ~closes shop~ for the winter. Expect observations to be uploaded pretty soon!!

-Matthew

Let me just begin by saying lessons were learned from last week.

Firstly, when you go to collect a plant, make sure there isn't a tiny spiky/thorny plant at the base. You will get scratched. Second, when attempting to clip branches off a tree, don't assume the soil at the edge of a ditch will support you. Thirdly, and probably most important, is that I need to take the entire plant, not matter how big, instead of clipping off the middle section. I don't need specimens to look super pretty right now, I just need to have enough material to identify it.

Last week I collected 13 species and so far have identified 5 (I won't say if they're correct or not) but I'm pretty confident in most of them! Anytime I think I've successfully identified a species I'll upload the pictures to the project!

Some changes to how I'm going to collect compared to last week: 1. I'm now collecting more material, 2. That material isn't going to be cut or altered until it's back in the herbarium and I'm trying to identify it and 3. I'm leaving more space in my field notebook between collections so that I can make notes when trying to identify them.

Until next week,

Matthew