I have been working toward documenting, collecting, and creating a personal encyclopedia of local wild plants, an ongoing project for the past several months. this week, I submitted the first installment of my plant collection to my instructors. fifty-odd plants, categorized into herbs, ferns, and introduced species were carefully (and sometimes haphazardly) collected and pressed in old textbooks, between sheets of the globe and mail, corrugated cardboard, and splintering wood, mounted on cardstock, and meticulously labeled. they were completed with scratches of detailed information on location elevations, nutrient indicator values. I poured over stories of cultural uses, wildlife relationships, associated species, and the poetry in the rhythms of the latin names: coptis asplenifolia, epilobium angustifolim, cornus canadensis, lupinus nootkatensis, athyrium filix-femina (fern-leaved goldthread, fireweed, dwarf dogwood, nootka lupine, lady fern).
the process continues, the library grows:
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| Nuphar polysepalum, Cypress Mountain |
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| Xerophyllum tenax, Waterton Lakes National Park |
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| collecting in the coulees, Lethbridge |
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| Fauria crista-galli, Cypress Mountain |
