Two weeks ago I began the graduate program of my dreams - the two-year Field Naturalist master's program at the University of Vermont. I can't believe I'm here. I had absurdly high hopes, and so far it looks like the program is going to meet and exceed them. I am overjoyed!
and rattlesnake mannagrass (Glyyceria canadensis)
More intense nerdiness on this topic, coming soon :-D
During the last 2 weeks of "botany boot camp", we spent some of our time learning to identify grasses (Poacea family) and sedges (Cyperaceae family). These (along with the rushes, not yet covered) are "those grassy-looking plants" that are often dismissed by amateur botanists, including myself.
Looking at iNaturalist, before this trip, I only had 42 observations of sedges and 23 observations of grasses. Nominally those observations cover 10 species of sedges and 4 species of grasses, but those numbers are almost meaningless, as most of the observations aren't ID'd to species and don't include the level of detail needed to get to species, even for an expert. To put that in context, I've made over 2900 observations of over 200 plant species at the Witchwood, but I've all but ignored these plants before now.
As always, once you start looking closely, it's amazing how much you've failed to see! Grass and sedge flowers are generally small and subtle, and there's a whole specialized vocabulary to describe their itty bitty parts, which puts lots of people off. But our instructors did a beautiful job laying it all out for us, and now I'm absolutely thrilled to investigate the grasses and sedges of the Witchwood!
Since identification of many grasses and sedges requires at least a hand lens, if not a dissecting microscope, I brought home samples to ID at home. After spending about 3 hours last night, I think (hope?) I've correctly identified bladder sedge (Carex intumescens)
