Final Impressions

At the beginning of the semester, I did not know the scientific name of a single plant.  Now I know the scientific name of close to a hundred plants.  Though I may not use some of the information I gained, I will definitely value some of it, too.  Botany has become more than just plants for me.  I can now identify plants based on certain distinguishing characteristics.  Plants serve an important role in our ecosystem and environment.  The number one food source in the world comes from one family of plants.  In addition, plants give us medicines without which many people would die.  Not only are plants essential in providing us food and medicine, but many of us wouldn't have a place to live without the lumber from trees used to build our homes.
If you had told me at the beginning of the semester that I would have enjoyed learning the names of a hundred plants or learning about plants in general, I would have laughed.  Surprisingly, this class has been a fun class.  Though very time consuming, the labs and lab projects helped me to think critically and reason out what plant I could be looking at.  I never imagined that I would be doing that for a botany class.  It's funny that I constantly catch myself passing a tree or herb that I know the scientific name of and telling it to whoever I am walking with.  People look at me crazily, but I know many of the things I learned in this class will stay with me for years to come.

Alternative Post #5

From the beginning of the semester, we learned that different plants (not related to each other closely at all) could have the same common name.  For this reason, Dr. Van Zandt instructed us to learn the scientific name of each plant we encountered in lab.  This is something I really appreciate.  Even though some of the scientifice names didn't make sense (how are they supposed to make sense when we don't speak Latin), just learning the scientific name helped us to not become confused later on.  Though we haven't really encountered multiple plants with the same common names, I wanted to share an instance in lab where I noticed the discrepancy.  I had heard that Hexastylis arifolia had the common name of Little Brown Jug and of Wild Ginger.  Another plant has the same common name of Wild Ginger (Asarum Canadense).  This brings up another important distinction.  Some plants can have more than one common name.  It's important that we have one official naming system because we botanists are talking about plants, they need to make sure that they are discussing the same plant.  Due to the nature of the class, I chose to only learn the scientific name of the plants (in the end, I sometimes learned the common name because it was easy to remember).  This was just something that I have learned that is extremely important not only to the plant community, but to the entire scientific community.

Final Impressions

Looking back on my first blog post, my views on plants have definitely changed. I did not know much about plants before this semester so there has been a lot of new information to absorb in the past few months. I definitely never gave much thought to how many useful drugs and other compounds come from plants. I also never realized, that for some species, how fleetingly their flowers are blooming. Eastern redbud, Flowering dogwood, and even the Azaleas in front of the sorority townhouses all had flowers that bloomed and fell off within the span of a few weeks. Another new discovery was how quickly our site went from a bald wintery landscape to dense with leaves and bright flowers. I never knew how quickly all this happened until I had to track certain species' phenology. At the beginning of the semester I thought identifying and memorizing a large number of plants would not be as difficult as it has been. During my interim class we only used the common names, but memorized nearly one hundred different birds. This past semester, I've learned that I am very bad at memorizing scientific names and it probably has to do with my incapability to spell even english words. I did however really enjoy being outside as much as I was for this class. I enjoyed going to different sites and getting out of the classroom. I did underestimate the amount of time I would have to spend at our project site. On our first visit, Shay and I probably spent four hours successfully identifying two trees. Since then we have obviously improved our identification skills but it was often difficult to coordinate our schedules so that we would have enough time to do what was necessary. Overall I have a broader understanding of plants and their usefulness and I do enjoy annoying my friends by identifying plants around them. I'll conclude with my favorite plants of the semester. My favorite would have to be Trillium cuneatum. I thought our pressed specimens turned out great and I love how trillium looks like a little alien plant that I would have been freaked out by before knowing what it is. I also really enjoy Magnolia grandiflora and wish we would've been able to press a flower.

Alternative Post #4

At the beginning of the semester, my very first blog post was about a pitcher plant.  I want to return to this again.  This video shows a pitcher plant devouring a mouse.  Interestingly, some pitcher plants can become huge plants that are big enough to ingest rodents, which I talked about in my earlier post.  I think it's fascinating that plants have developed these adaptations.  People always take plants for granted, and they never seem to imagine the harm some plants can do.  Of course you have the typical, Toxicodendron radicans, that many people are allergic to, but even the venus fly trap doesn't get as much attention as it should.  The video linked above shows the importance of plants.  Not only can plants defend themselves, but they don't have to "move" anywhere to do it.  What I mean by this is that they are anchored to the ground, but they are still able to defend themselves.  In some cases this might mean ingesting an entire mouse or frog.  Over time, plants have developed interesting adaptations that are helpful for them to defned themselves.

Alternative Post #3

At the beginning of this semester, I think I took plants for granted.  I never really considered that plants make up a majority of the things we humans eat.  Even if we are eating say a steak, it is most likely flavored or seasoned with some type of herb.  This phylogenetic tree from the Botanist in the Kitchen Blog shows how plants play a major role in our lives.  Well, first off we get avocado from a plant off the Magnolid branch.  Then we get wheat and grain (#1 food source in the world) from monocots.  Lastly, what we've learned over the last month in class is there are so many delicious foods that come from eudicots.  After this semester learning about all these plants and their usefulness, I definitely won't take the flavor that comes with so many meals for granted anymore.  So many of the delicious spices we have come from these plants (most spices come from the "other" group, meaning not monocots or dicots).  The author of the botanist in the kitchen points out that not all of the plants are eaten equally.  For example, some of the foods found in the magnolid clad may be useful for flavoring; however, the core eudicots consist of fruits and vegetables.

Plant Phenology of Food
Photo from: http://botanistinthekitchen.wordpress.com/the-plant-food-tree-of-life/phylogenetic-tree-view/

Additional Post 5

As implied in it's name, poison ivy, Toxicodendron radicans, contains a substance called urushiol that when comes in contact with the skin will produce a nasty rash for most people. However, some people only experience mild or even no reaction to the poisonous plant. According to various internet sites, immunity can come and go so you should always be cautious when around poison ivy even if you have never had a reaction. This semester I have definitely come in contact with poison ivy. I was collecting some Virginia creeper and I looked down to see my elbow resting nicely in a patch of poison ivy. I have not had a reaction all semester so I am very thankful and cautiously optimistic that I am currently not allergic to poison ivy. Someone brought up in lab one day the practice of eating small amounts of poison ivy periodically to become immune for that season. There are stories online of people accidentally burning poison ivy and going to the hospital with a collapsed lung so I do not know how introducing it into your digestive system is possible. But as I've learned you can find most anything on the internet. In the first link the man eats a poison ivy leaf straight off the tree. The second link below is a video of a man eating poison ivy by wrapping it in some bread and washing it down with some water.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sux00hnd4BU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYToLyqJzuk

http://www.poison-ivy.org/html/stories.htm

Final Phenology Post

Here are the results from our phenology project over the semester.


Asimina triloba (pawpaw)- 3/26 50% buds burst, 4/4 first leaf, 4/11 first flower, 4/23 60% leaves unfolded, 4/25 75% leaves unfolded


Liriodendron tulipifera (Tulip tree)- 3/26 <50% buds burst, 4/11 first leaf, 4/18 full leaf


Quercus alba (White oak)- 4/4 bud burst, 4/18 full leaf


Cornus florida (Flowering dogwood)- 4/4 leaves unfolded, 4/11 full flower, 4/18 flowers had fallen off

Characterization of Site

 



This semester we collected plants from the Marian Harnach Nature Trail at Ruffner Mountain.  Ruffner is located in North Jefferson County (33.56N, -86.71E).  The pictures below show Ruffner Mountain from Google Earth, and it shows a trail map of Ruffner Mountain.  The Marian Harnach Trail is 0.6 miles long and is located right near the Visitor Center.  When we first arrived at the site, there was debris consisting of fallen trees.  The picture below shows an adequate representation of what our site looked like early on.  Ruffner is located in the Alabama Valley and Ridge Province.  Limestone is very prevalent at Ruffner.  This limestone creates calcium-rich soil (http://trekbirmingham.com/topics/geology/).  Our trail's plant habitat is a mesic forest, which requires moisture for the plants to flourish.  The most dominant trees at our site were Oaks, Hickory trees, and Tulip-Poplar trees.  The herbaceous plants most prevalent were poison ivy, Japanese honeysuckle, and Virginia Creeper.

 





Picture of Ruffner Mountain in February 2014

Photo by: Hannah Spivey





 

Debris seen at Ruffner.

Photo by: Shay Gibson

 

Ruffner Mountain as seen from Google Earth.

Marian Harnach Nature Trail as seen from Google Earth. (33.56N, -86.70E)

Ruffner Mountain Trail Map.
Photo from http://birminghamtrackclub.com/ruffner-mountain-nature-preserve.php

Final Species List

Here are the 50 species we collected over the semester.  They correspond to the order in our lab notebook and plant collection.

Additional Post 4

I have always had honeysuckle around in my backyard growing up and I love pinching off the end and getting a tiny drop of nectar. This honeysuckle I grew up with was most likely, Lonicera japonica, and little did I know then it is an invasive species that can be potentially damaging to our native plants. Several states have prohibited it because it can grow very rapidly and outcompete native plants for vital resources. Because of its few natural enemies in North America Japanese Honeysuckle is mostly free to grow and is often planted in landscapes and other areas for ornamental reasons. According to the Center for Aquatic and Invasive Plants, it is an evergreen twining woody vine that will grow on anything. This is bad for small trees that can be overtaken and killed by the honeysuckle, but most gardeners take advantage of this characteristic allowing it to wrap on to structure in a decorative manner. I found a youtube video of a lovely elderly couple who can show you how to eat honeysuckle nectar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WZ-oEzLNAU

http://plants.ifas.ufl.edu/node/239

Additional Post 3

Kudzu was introduced to America in the late 19th century and farmers were encouraged to plant it to prevent soil erosion. Since then it has been labelled an invasive species and it a major problem for many people. Kudzu is so destructive because it grows over everything and anything blocking sunlight from reaching other plants. According to the Center for Aquatic and Invasive plants it can grow up to a foot a day making it even harder to control than a normal invasive species. It takes consistent monitoring and laboring to eradicate, making this plant a serious pain for farmers and homeowners.

http://plants.ifas.ufl.edu/node/354

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLH1qLCvqSg

Additional Post 2

Many plants produce various compounds for evolutionary purposes and humans have long been extracting these compounds and using them for good and evil. A while back a friend taking the Drugs, Brain and Behavior psychology class offered here showed me a documentary on a drug found in Columbia that could send a person into a zombie-like state, having no memory or control while still being conscious. According to this article, this drug is made using scopolamine, a compound found in Angel Trumpet, Brugmansia. Apparently this drug can have serious effects by just blowing the powder form into the victim’s face. In this documentary there were several stories of people being robbed and taken advantage of while under the influence of this dangerous drug. Several other harmful substances humans use recreationally come from plants like nicotine, opium, cocaine and others.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/improvement/lawn-garden/4331026

Additional Post 1

The decline in the number of the world's species of plants and animals is concerning for a variety of reasons. We get many goods and services from the environment but one of the most important is probably the compounds found in plants that can be useful medicinally. Like the Rosy Periwinkle (Catharanthus roseus) from the article in the link below, plants can be instrumental in fighting some serious diseases. The websites states that there are over 50,000 plants that are known to have some medicinal value. As we learned in Evolutionary Ecology this semester, humans are having a very negative impact when it comes to Earth’s biodiversity. Habitat destruction, pollution, introducing invasive species, overpopulation and over harvesting are all human activities that are increasing the extinction rate of species. With the extinction of all these species we may be destroying plants that produce compounds that could useful in fighting some of the world’s worst diseases.

http://www.treehugger.com/lawn-garden/saving-the-plants-that-save-us.html

Alternative Post #2

Throughout this semester we've looked at some really interesting plants.  Plants all have various features that make each plant unique.  Whether it's the flowers of the plants, the leaves of the plants, or the smell some plants can't be distinguished from anything else.  For example, one of the plants we saw this semester was Hexastylis arifolia.  This plant has a single leave close to the ground, and it's flowers are little brown jugs buried underneath the leaves.  Another interesting plant my partner and I saw this semester was Arisaema triphyllum.  This is the Jack-in-the-pulpit that has an interesting flower.  This buzzfeed article discusses some plants that look very interesting and unique.  I especially think the Welwistichia plant is really interesting. It is really huge, and to me it looks like a pile of trash.

Alternative Post #1

In 2013, some researchers revived a plant that had been buried under ice for 400 years.  The resilience of these bryophytes amazed the researchers who found this plant.  This article discusses how these resilient plants could be important plants to consider planting on Mars.  The article points out that the plants of real interest would be those that are important for the ecosystem.  I think this finding is amazing.  This semester, I have been taking Microbiology in addition to this class, and we discussed endospores.  Endospores are unique to a few genera of bacteria.  The endospores can withstand harsh conditions (temperature, air, etc.) which leads to the growth of bacteria after the viable bacteria had been killed with the conditions.  This revival of a plant reminds me of the endospores found in a few bacteria.  Like these plants, the bacteria with endospores are important to study for many different reasons.