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BIO 432 Field Botany Phil Ganter 320 Harned Hall 963-5782 |
| Fern leaves - Which are leaves and which are leaflets? | |
|
BIO 432 Field Botany Phil Ganter 320 Harned Hall 963-5782 |
| Fern leaves - Which are leaves and which are leaflets? | |
Collecting Your Specimens
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Purpose of the page:
Before you can begin the process of identification, you will need to collect the plants and preserve them. This page is some advice about how to go about the collection step. Below are bookmarks to sections of this page.
General comments
First, and foremost, you are responsible for collecting. Do not collect from areas where collecting is specifically prohibited (state and national parks and forests are usually off-limits). Be courteous and ask landowners if you can collect specimens. In general, it is best to assume that it is illegal to collect without permission. Always remember to cause as little disturbance as you can.
The prohibition is not absolute but any collecting on state or federal lands requires a permit. The state regulations and permit can be viewed at:
The federal permits can be obtained from the park or forest office.
Second, you should be aware that some plants are rare or endangered and collecting should not be done when this is true. Don't mistake local abundance for species abundance. Rare or endangered plants (endangered is now an legally defined term due to the federal Endangered Species Act) do not always seem rare in the sense that you will find only lonely, isolated specimens. Some rare plants are found in a few large patches. It's the skimpy number of patches that makes the plant rare.
The best information on which plants are rare in Tennessee comes from a division of the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC - Division of Natural Heritage). The site below is the home page of the division
The list of plants that are protected can be reached through the data links on the website or at (the top site is a list of vascular plants and the bottom is for non-vascular plants). Vascular plants have xylem and phloem and include the flowering plants, conifers, and ferns. The non-vascular plants are the mosses and related plants such as liverworts and hornworts.
http://www.state.tn.us/environment/nh/tnplants.php?type=vasc
http://www.state.tn.us/environment/nh/tnplants.php?type=nonvasc
It is helpful if you know if a plant is in the area you are collecting. The protected plants have been mapped. The maps are in quarter quadrat pieces (the entire US has been divided into quadrats, which are the topo maps you can get when hiking in wild areas). Quarter quads are what the name implies. There are 4 quarter quads cut from each quadrat and labeled (from the upper left hand quarter) NW, NE, SE, and SW. You can see the listing by quarter quadrat at:
However, which quarter quadrat will you be visiting? This can be done by looking up the quadrat on the overall map, which is available from the division site. However, the map is a GIS ArcView file, and you will need to download a free viewer program before you can get it displayed. Instructions are part of the division webpage on quarter quadrats. A second option is to come to my office and we will look it up together..
Before going collecting, be sure to take some aids. You will need a hand-trowel, some newspaper, some plastic bags, a pencil, and a notebook. A backpack for transport is nice if you are expecting to walk out of sight of your car.
When you collect, you must collect information as well as a specimen. This is why the notebook and pencil are needed. Below is a list of the geographic and habitat characteristics you should note at the time of collection.
You can either use the collection sheets I have available, make your own collections sheets, or use a spiral notebook. The notebook should have at least 100 pages. Leave some room in front for a table of contents and number the pages (it's easiest if you buy a book with pages already numbered). As you collect, give each new plant a page and organize the information described on the collection page in a consistent manner on each page (easier to read this way - see the collection sheets I have). Once identifications are made, you can start to fill in the table of contents. The information will be part of the specimen label. An example can be viewed on the Mounting page
Last, you should start your identification work while collecting. Be sure to read all of the pages before beginning, but give a second read to the identification page before starting into the field.
Herbs and Grasses
When collecting herbs and grasses, look for a plant that has flowers on it. Fruits are also valuable. You will collect the entire plant, including some of the roots. You will have to bend the plant so that it will fit into the collecting bag. This is fine, as you would have to do this when you preserved or mounted the specimen in any case.
Loosen the soil at the plant's base with the trowel.
Remove the plant, fold it so that it will fit into the bag, and place it into the bag.
Take down the habitat information in your notebook.
Label the bag. The easiest way is to tear a small piece of paper off and label it with a number or some easy-to-remember name. Place the slip of paper in the bag and be sure to write the number or name in the notebook along with the habitat information.
Bushes and Trees
When collecting trees or shrubs, you can't take the entire plant. However, you will need pieces that will identify the plant. One problem will to be to know what a leaf is. This is not as easy as you might suspect. Many leaves have subdivisions, which can look like leaves themselves. This means you have to know some plant morphology. You can use the page with links to sites with plant morphology.
By the way, trees and bushes (= shrubs) are different from grasses and herbs (= forbes) in that they have woody stems. If there is one central woody stem, it is a tree. If there are several stems, it is a bush.
Leaves all arise from a stem on a stalk called a petiole. The petiole is filled with vascular tissue (xylem and phloem) plus some tissue to strengthen it. At the base of the petiole, where it hits the stem, the angle formed by the upper surface of the petiole and the stem is called the axilla (like your underarm is called the axilla). At the point of the angle, there is an axillary bud, which is always present. No bud, not a leaf. So if you are looking at a leaflet, not a leaf, you won't see the bud. All leaflets are part of leaves, so follow the leaf to its base and find the bud. When you collect a leaf, make sure it is the whole leaf.
Also collect enough material for two purposes. You will need material to preserve and material for identification. Ideally, you could use the same material for both, but time is short in a summer course and you should be identifying material as it dries.
Collect up to 5 leaves (some may get damaged, so overdo it rather than underdo it).
Collect specimens of any fruit or flowers present
Collect specimens of twigs. If possible (and usually it is) collect a couple of twigs with leaves attached. The arrangement of leaves on the twigs is usually important in identification.
Collect a specimen of bark large enough to get the impression of the look of the bark
Bag all of these specimens (same bag) and label with a slip of paper as above in "Herbs and Grasses"
Take down habitat information in your notebook. Be sure to write the name or number on the label you put in the bag in the notebook too.
Go forward to the Preservation page
Here is an unusual plant. It's not the cactus (Echinopsis chilensis), it's the flowers. They aren't cactus flowers but the flowers of a plant that is a parasite inside the cactus. It is a mistletoe, Tristerix aphyllus, a relative of the mistletoes that can be seen in trees (often oaks) in Tennessee. It is easiest to see these in the fall, after the tree has lost its leaves. The Tennessee mistletoes have leaves throughout the year and produce white berries in the fall (these are the mistletoe over doorways at Christmas). The cactus parasite has no leaves or roots but exists as a group of cells inside the vascular bundle of the cactus. When time to reproduce, it forms stems that grow out from the bundles and form flowers once they have erupted from the cactus' surface. Fruits are formed and eaten by birds, which carry the seeds to new hosts in their feces. There the seeds, which are covered by a mucilage, are deposited on the surface of the cacti. The mucilage glues them to the surface and, when they germinate, anchors the seeds so that they can push their way past the tough skin of the cactus. Once inside, they grow into the cactus until they reach the vascular bundle. There are relatively few parasitic plants but parasitism is a life history that has evolved independently many, many times. No large taxonomic group lacks parasitic members.
Go forward to the Preservation page
Last updated July 11, 2006