Locality data

Tony Avent Tony@plantdelights.com
Fri, 02 Nov 2012 12:31:18 PDT
Dylan:

I think many of us are bemoaning the fact that field taxonomy is a becoming lost skill.  I've lost track of how many times I've shown a growing specimen to a taxonomist/botanist and had the effective reply of; kill it and smash it...then we'll tell you what it was.  A few years ago, I participated in a native plant inventory field count in a wild area near us.  I figured I'd take a flowering phlox that I'd found years earlier from the Virginia shale barrens in hopes of getting a confirmed id.  The phlox was passed around through then hands of 30 different expert botanists including botany professors.  After it had a thorough examination by each, the group leader declared that is was most certainly in the Polemoniaceae family, but after making a herbarium specimen, he might be able to tell me more.  You just can't make this stuff up.


Tony Avent
Plant Delights Nursery @
Juniper Level Botanic Garden
9241 Sauls Road
Raleigh, North Carolina  27603  USA
Minimum Winter Temps 0-5 F
Maximum Summer Temps 95-105F
USDA Hardiness Zone 7b
email tony@plantdelights.com
website  http://www.plantdelights.com/
phone 919 772-4794
fax  919 772-4752
"I consider every plant hardy until I have killed it myself...at least three times" - Avent



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