Summer School, 2011

I signed up for a great class at Merritt College this summer called "Plants of the Mediterranean." I got the thumbs up from the bosses to take the time off, negotiating use of personal vacation time to make up for the difference, paid my tuition and everything. It's taught by this professor I've been wanting to take a class with for a while now. Only thing is, the class was under-enrolled, and in this economic climate, and in California's community college system in particular, this is a recipe for disaster. The class got cancelled at the last minute. My entire summer schedule got thrown off, and in the end, I was sitting there with a great will and thirst for knowledge, but nothing to show for it. What's a girl to do?

So what I did, and I did without quite knowing it, was create my own class. More of an independent study you might say, overseen by none other than, yep, Me! I didn't start off thinking I'd be taking a class, but now that it is August, it's becoming more and more obvious that I actually am, with my own nebulous syllabus, great texts, and one of the most fantastic classrooms that a novice like myself could hope for. I haven't given my class a name, but since I am blogging about it now, I shall christen it: Plants of the Mills College Campus.

During my first semester at Merritt last fall I did a project for my Horticulture 101 class that tried to document as many plants as I could, given the time-frame, and create herbarium specimens of them. A herbarium is a collection of plants that have been collected and pressed (think: flower petals pressed between the pages of your phone book) with extra documentation and a little bit of scientificism (yes I think I just christened another concept!) thrown in. After the project was turned in, I knew I was nowhere near being satisfied with the amount of plant material I collected. One of my limitations for the original project was in being able to identify the plants I collected. I am such a newbie at plant identification it's not even funny. I could probably tell you what a rose is, and maybe a tree, but identifying and providing scientific names for plants? Uh-uh. No way. This spring I looked at all the new things popping up and not being enrolled in a plant identification class, I despaired at the thought of missing out on documenting all that I saw around me. It didn't take me long to come up with this thought: Oh, to hell with the identification part--just grab whatever you can before they all disappear again! And so.

Spring turned to Summer. Things found their way into my plant press. I bought a pair of small hand-pruners, which I dubbed my stealth-pruners, which I could pull out and to gather plants without being obvious I was pilfering the wildlife (for some reason I feel a great shame in actually being caught--by whom?--I don't know). I began to walk around during my lunch hour with a plastic bag. I carried a notebook. My eyes changed: they began to see things that used to just blend into the landscape. Flashes of color became great shining beacons of discovery. Green wasn't just green anymore--it had new and certain degrees of gradation. The bright, untouched lime green was a sure sign of something new. And there were flashes of color, pinks, oranges, and all shades of blue and purple--all these I would collect for my press, trying to gather parts of the plant that would aid in identification. Every discovery was a joy, new and undiscovered. It didn't matter what it was--if it was new to me and if it was growing on the Mills College campus, then it would be fair game for my herbarium.

True, there were a few places off-limits to me, on a moral level. For instance, it seems very unfair to go to the Botanical Garden to collect things. After all, people are lovingly cultivating the things growing there and there are signs for godsakes, telling you exactly what the plant is. That's cheating. Outright. That's like going to a zoo with a rifle and claiming to bag new species. Wrong. And there are also a few designated demonstration areas--places on campus with fabulous plants growing for the benefit of passerby who care to stop and read the lovely, detailed-filled signs describing them. These I considered clues, not entirely off limits, but shunned upon, for sure. And for the record, dear Botanical Garden Co-Ordinator, I did not collect from your demonstration areas, I merely used your beautifully identified plant species to collect from other areas on campus where the plants were growing in their natural states. Clues. Scout's honor.

Collection requires a few supplies. I am a little, uh, economically challenged by the way. To create an herbarium requires a nominal amount of equipment. I insist on purchasing archival paper to mount my specimens, as well as archival glue (I may be just an imp in the herbarium world, but I must say that these things are absolutely non-negotiable, or rather, non-reversable. I may not be the best plant presser, but at least my specimens will last into perpetuity). I splurged on cute little jewelry tags, pre-punched and strung with neat, white string (oh so tidy and beautiful in their conformity). These I would assign notes on the plants--where-collected, date, habitat information. But to press plants requires "flimsies" (aka 11 1/2" x 16 1/2" paper that the plants are actually contained in during the pressing process--these I pilfered from old copies of the school newspaper):

"Ventilators" (aka, cardboard cut from the same dimensions used in between the flimsies, sandwich style--might I say how hard it is to find cardboard without creases in the allotted area?):

And now that I am in the depths of summer, "coin envelopes" (aka seed/carpel packets). I say necessity is the mother of invention (yes, I am recycling my cliches too), and so portions of my lunch hour were dedicated to also collecting and creating these oh so necessary materials. I pride myself, not on my miserly-ness, but on my green-ness in procuring these supplies. This is recycling to the max. Talk about saving a tree for the sake of scientificism!

Paper used to pad boxes for shipping . . .

. . . invested with a few cuts, folds, and a drop of glue became . . .. . . envelopes for saving seed in!

And then comes the great task of identification. I have to say that when I was collecting, I had no hope of actually identifying any of these plants until I was enrolled in some great plant ID class at some point in the distant future. But since I have been trying to be economical about everything, I have been utilizing a great resource here on campus, available to me as an employee, namely: the Library! What a great place!! They've got all sorts of books there on every topic under the sun, and get this--they let you take them home with you--for FREE! What a concept! True, you do have to give the books back, but they let you extend the due dates over and over--for free! The mystery of this class keeps revealing itself to me. I'm not sure how I am learning how to identify plants, but as I flip through books I realize--hey, I've seen that one before! And hey, I've seen that one too. Maybe it's the freedom of not actually being enrolled in a class, or bearing the pressure of having to absorb certain information, that makes me all the more, uh, absorbent! At first I checked out books about rare wildflowers and native plants. But as I began to understand what I was seeing, I have come to a few conclusions:

1) Some of the plants that are growing so freely and readily and which are capturing my attention now are not rare, botanical jewels--they're weeds. I have to admit at this point in my botanical undertakings that I am a blunt tool. I am seeing the most gaudy, numerous and environmentally obnoxious plants.

2)Being a blunt tool is not such a bad thing. After all, being able to identify what is common in the landscape only hones my skill in what I hope to be able to identify what is uncommon. Hopefully I am just sharpening my skills by using the rougher grit first, seeing first the forest, then the trees.

3) And also, just as importantly, pressing botanical specimens meant to be preserved for all eternity is a skill that ought not to be taken upon using blunt tools. I am learning a craft here. There is technique involved in pressing delicate flowers and collecting plant material. Better to make and learn from my mistakes on common plants and weeds rather than those jewels.

4) After scratching through the weeds and invasive species and common ornamental plants, I have come upon what I consider treasures in themselves, namely, the native plants of California. While the Mills campus may not be a hotbed of plant diversity, there are some really important and interesting plants growing here. I have discovered among our native species: California buckeye, ceanothus, laurel, flannelbush, coyotebush, oaks, redwoods, toyon, elderberry, box elder, Big leaf maple, redbud, mimulus, and manzanita, to name a few. So far most of the native species I've discovered (or rather, identified), have been hardy perennials. Someday I hope to develop my eye to spy on those elusive, ephemeral annuals--those delicate little plants that pop up, flower, and return to the long dormancy that is the trademark of California flora.

But summer is reaching its end--academically anyway. School starts in a few weeks. I still have plants in my press that need to be mounted. I need to label and identify. I am giving myself a deadline: I need to be done with this season's work by the time the new semester begins. This is good. Deadlines are good. Now I just need to do the work.

There are still a few good months of heat, the hottest and most severest kind, and the curling into dormancy. Things will dry, transform into golden hues, die back; the sun will burn through the fog and lay down heavily--clumsy and masculine--upon the grasses, upon the leafed-out canopies of trees, leaving its musky scent behind in the earth. Dust settles on all things. The world sounds different then: it rustles and cracks. Seedpods break open and surrender themselves to the baked, parched earth, falling into deep sleep until the rains return again.