July 21 to 23,2005: Sorting Vegetation Samples Options

[Meryl David]

Was it difficult to sort the plants in the proper genus and how long did it take you?
If it were me it take like a week and all the plants would be dead already. I can't remember what the plants' names are either.

[Leslie_Pierce]

Hi Meryl,

It's not too bad sorting grasses and sedges to the genus level, but sometimes it's very hard to sort them to the species level. So, many times we would just put down the genus with an "sp." after the genus name. The "sp." means that is is some species of that genus, but you're not sure! Luckily, we didn't have that many different plants, so not that many different names to remember. We also had field guides and floral manuals to help us identify the plants.

We spent 3 days sorting the samples and we had about 200 samples! We needed to work quickly before they were so dried out that we couldn't tell what they were!


Ms Pierce