What Happened to Rosemary?

Rosemary is a sun-loving plant of the rocky areas along the Mediterranean Sea, from the south of Spain into the Middle East. Her leaves are long and fragrant, her flowers a beautiful purple. Long ago humans found her scent calming and the oils in her leaves a fine flavoring. She had two close relatives, sisters you might say, but they grew only in local areas near her, while rosemary herself was carried around the world by humans. (See previous blog about rosemary link).

But one day, in 2015, botanists sent rosemary's DNA off to the botanical equivalent AncestryDNA and when the results came back, they were shocking.

Visiting Minnesota--Lovely Forestville State Park

I took a field trip to Forestville/ Mystery Cave State Park during the Botanical Society of America meetings (meeting post). It is a reserve in the driftless region, places the glaciers somehow missed. The glaciers nevertheless rearranged the area, as rivers of meltwater cut deep channels and, slowing, dropped everything from sand to boulders.

Today the area is at the western edge of the great Eastern Deciduous Forest that covered the eastern United States. The forest in Forestville is secondary growth, having been farmland in the 1890s, but progressively abandoned thereafter, officially designated a state park in the 1960s. Minnesota Parks has making a concerted effort to remove weeds and favor native plants. Experts can show you the imperfections, but to a casual visitor, it is a lovely forest.

Visiting Colorado--Old Fall River Road, Rocky Mountain National Park

Almost to the top of Old Fall River Road

Old Fall River Road was the first automobile road to the alpine tundra in Rocky Mountain National Park; it opened in 1920.  It is unpaved and runs steeply up. It hasn't been continuously open: for almost a decade in the 1950-1960's it was closed by a landslide. Today it is open when (mostly) snow -free, about Memorial Day to Labor Day--until Oct. 1 in 2018. It is one-way, uphill only.

Long vehicles are discouraged. We were a bit concerned about taking a Prius but in fact having a compact car made the turns, some truly hair-pin, easier for us than for bigger vehicles. Had it been after a heavy rain, we might have regretted the Prius: there were muddy ruts in the road, some quite deep, but when we were there, dry and easily avoided.

So on a sunny morning we headed up Old Fall River Road.

Botanists at Work--Botany2018 Meeting

This year I again attended the Botanical Society of America annual meeting this year in Rochester, Minnesota. I go to keep up--since I write this blog from retirement, attending professional meetings helps me check that I am providing accurate information.

So I attended general lectures and technical papers, read posters, looked at the books the publishers brought and, of course, talked to people.