I took the train in to work this morning - the Metra, as it's called here. Fantastic! It's double-decker, and I rode on top! sooooo cool.... i haven't been on one of those since Germany!
The train line runs parallel to Green Bay Rd, which is the bulk of my commute, for a lot of the time I'm on it, and it was so nice to look over and watch the cars and not have to worry about getting rear-ended, or cut off, or being late because of too many stoplights. I just sat there reading Edward Abbey (Desert Solitaire ... again) and watching my fellow commuters. There are always so many fascinating people on the train.
I think that I will go outside and look for the plants I'll be monitoring here next week. The deal is, we find a population of a rare, threatened, or endangered plant and then map the population and observe the habitat, associated species, invasive species threatening the population, and other threats to the population. Then we talk to the land manager and find out what they have been doing to the land. Then we put all the info in a database. Lather, rinse, repeat. There are now 6 years worth of data (this is #7), so we still have a couple more years to go before we can say anything really significant about population trends etc. A population viability analysis requires a long data set to actually mean anything.
Anyway, the plant i'm looking at next week is called Pretty sedge (among other things) and looks like this:
Carex woodii, if you're a nerd. Kind of a cutie. I'm excited because it grows in the woods, not on the prairie, and I like any excuse to hang out with trees.
This is the guy I saw yesterday:
Trillium erectum. Here, called Ill-scented trillium. Not a nice name for such an awesome flower.Anyway. I will stop nerding out about plants. I'll resist.
Instead, I will go look at them!
1 comment:
Nerd out about plants some more. I'd like that. There's not enough plant-nerding-out.
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