Francesca and I have completed our first plant collecting excursion. I have to say that it sounds a lot easier than it is. Of course, when thinking of collecting plants in the desert, you'd think there wouldn't be much out there. Even after looking at all the plants last year, I still came back with that impression. This year, however, there are so many plants, it's hard to decide where to start. And by plants, what I mean is strong stubborn survivors….just so you know. We decided to start small on a plant I'd noticed last year that looked somewhat like an African Violet; a nice, small plant to start with. 30 minutes of digging later, I got the last bit of root out of the rocky ground it was desperately clinging to. I almost felt bad for it after all its hard work growing those roots towards some sort of moisture. Well, except that I was pretty annoyed with it after all that digging! After a few more (stubborn) plants, we called it quits and headed back to our work room to press the plants we'd just collected. Again….sounds a lot easier than it is….especially when one of the plants is full of really hard pointy thorns that would really rather poke you than get flattened. Overall though, we felt very accomplished and productive, thanks to the lessons on plant collecting given by the wonderful Botany Department at the ROM. I think it'll be a really rewarding experience building a herbarium here, especially given the focus on reversing desertification here in Syria. Today a local botanist came by and was very excited to hear our ideas for research and display of the flora of the region (and he didn't laugh at our attempts at plant pressing either). Not a bad beginning I'd say!
Jovanna
