Deep in the basement of Hitchcock Hall
September 2018 through to the present
Volunteering at the Burke Herbarium was perhaps the best idea I had in college. Most other opportunities dropped into my lap thanks to my experience down in Hitchcock's dungeon, or because the curator, Dr. David Giblin, advised me to pursue them. First: for those who don't know, a herbarium is essentially a plant library, with pressed flowers and leaves instead of books, and rows of soft orange steel cabinets instead of shelves. It is a quiet, yellow-lit place, with shoe boxes full of supplies or fungus specimens, plant debris lying around on stacks of newspaper, microscopes covered in plastic to keep off the dust, broken fridges that, when opened, reveal yet more dried plants. Some of the field presses were built in the 30s and 40s, the books could be as old as the 19th century and from as far away as Siberia, and the specimens themselves were worldwide. The earliest I found was from 1868, shortly after the university was founded. The paper was slender and smooth, yellow-brown, and the flower thin as onion paper and delicate. More hailed from the 1880s and 1890s, while a truly absurd number heralded the natural history boom of the 20s and 30s. Social and scientific history mixed. That combination of the human and natural appealed instantly.
Volunteering at the Burke Herbarium was perhaps the best idea I had in college. Most other opportunities dropped into my lap thanks to my experience down in Hitchcock's dungeon, or because the curator, Dr. David Giblin, advised me to pursue them. First: for those who don't know, a herbarium is essentially a plant library, with pressed flowers and leaves instead of books, and rows of soft orange steel cabinets instead of shelves. It is a quiet, yellow-lit place, with shoe boxes full of supplies or fungus specimens, plant debris lying around on stacks of newspaper, microscopes covered in plastic to keep off the dust, broken fridges that, when opened, reveal yet more dried plants. Some of the field presses were built in the 30s and 40s, the books could be as old as the 19th century and from as far away as Siberia, and the specimens themselves were worldwide. The earliest I found was from 1868, shortly after the university was founded. The paper was slender and smooth, yellow-brown, and the flower thin as onion paper and delicate. More hailed from the 1880s and 1890s, while a truly absurd number heralded the natural history boom of the 20s and 30s. Social and scientific history mixed. That combination of the human and natural appealed instantly.
Keying mystery plants
My first task at the Herbarium was to identify plants collected during past field work using a dichotomous key. David set me to it because I had experience with identifying plants thanks to Dr. Dick Olmstead's class, a good eye for detail, and the ability to stare through a microscope for hours without feeling funny. I did this regularly enough for two or so years, with flowers from Nevada, Oregon, and Washington passing through my hands.
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Foray to Sinlahekin
Every year, the Burke Herbarium hosts a field trip to collect new specimens from somewhere within a day or two's drive. The group, usually consisting of two-to-four staff and a gaggle of volunteers, camps out for a few nights, spends the days sampling as many different ecosystems as possible, and competes in a dessert contest. I was one of the two interns on our 2019 trip to eastern Washington, to the Sinlahekin Valley in the Okanogan, arriving in dusty rancher's country almost immediately after leaving Friday Harbor. The area is all pinelands, your typical scrubby open woods with big lodgepole and ponderosa, the air scented with vanilla and wildflowers, hidden wetlands and seeps brilliant mossy green among the rocks. Myself and the other intern traded groups each day, which I considered lucky since it meant I stayed mostly in the uplands, while she had to go out to sagebrush flats in the 90 degree heat. On the downside, I had horrible hay fever the entire time, and whenever I caught our grass botanist looking at me, she had an expression of intense pity on her face. My daily responsibilities were grunt work --- I helped load the vans, unload the vans, press the flowers, record notes, etc. What I treasured was the chance to talk with working botanists from the BLM and DNR, people who had made careers out of their love of plants and nature. Careers with pensions! What a dream. Best of all, the foray forced me to adjust to high heat before my journey to Costa Rica later that summer.
Hille Ris Lambers Project
I applied to join Dr. Janneke Hille Ris Lambers's lab in the fall of my junior year, and got the job thanks to my Herbarium connections (at least, so I assume). Janneke is an excellent alpine ecologist. At the time, her lab studied Mt. Rainier National Park and climate change, and I was hired initially to sort through debris collected from the forest floor and look for tree seeds, identifying and counting them. I actually rather liked it. I have a good eye for detail and I like puzzles, which staved off the boredom one would expect from pawing through pine needles for hours. I also moved fast without apparently sacrificing thoroughness, a skill which has served me well in later research. I met some excellent researchers there, including Meera, a good soul who now our Ruesink Lab meetings, Aji, who knew an absurd amount about sap flow, and Lyda Harris, who was actually in a neighboring marine lab, but who once saw me stab myself in the leg with an agave and bleed profusely. I like to think I made an impression.
The most exciting part of all this was my first proper research project, designed and carried out by myself. The suggestion came from Janneke, and the specimens and equipment from David Giblin, but I came up with the question, gathered the data, analyzed it, and presented on it at the Undergraduate Research Symposium, virtually because of the coronavirus. I made a video, which has since disappeared, so here is a picture of a lupine, my subject, and the script. |
Phenology Project
My last big project with the Herbarium, at least as a student at UW. Working with Dr. Melissa Islam, I helped draft training materials for future volunteers. The project goal is to eventually sort through the many, many photos we have in the image collection, assigning them phenological phases (e.g. flowering, fruiting, just a stick with leaves), and eventually making them available for future researchers to trawl through. Given that I myself did a study that involved staring for hours on end at old specimens, I am sympathetic to the goal of expediting our image searches. I sent off the materials, a video (script provided) and a guide, sometime in December, and apparently the project is up and running at present with several thousand photos categorized already. The power of citizen science.
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