Botanizing…is it a word?

Over the last year, Oliver has been devoting time to a senior research project that has been partially funded by a grant and very connected to the UVU Herbarium. He spent 5 trips up to a remote area of the Uinta Mountain Range to collect flowering plants. He tried to take pictures of most locations and plant habitats, collected coordinates of collection sites and had a whole lot of visual excitement. He loves camping. The first trip was with his faculty advisor, the director of the Herbarium. They went when it was still snowy and didn’t get very far into the area.

Trip two was with brother Charlie. They hiked a LOT, took a lot of pictures, collected a lot of plants, and sang with the guitar by the campfire.

Trip 3: Alone. Oliver hiked Bald Mountain. He saw the sunset from the top! He forgot his flashlight in the truck…but had his camera with him and used the flash to find his way back safely. A rather treacherous journey, but he made it back to us. And he was successful in collecting again.

Trip four was the least productive collection trip because the whole family went. But as you can see, he did get some plants and we had a good time together.

His last trip was with hiking buddy Beth….to the top of King’s Peak. They were VERY tired even before they were done. They did make it to the top and back down.

Oliver collected a lot of plants. His project was more than just collecting though, he pressed them all and then last fall and the beginning of this semester, he has been spending time identifying all of the plants he collected. It was time consuming and difficult, but he did it.

After identifying them, each different plant got to be placed on a board and will soon be scanned into the computer so that the UVU Online Herbarium can store it and make the plants available for anyone to view.

Last week, Oliver presented his project at school to students and faculty in the science department. He has really enjoyed this project. He’s definitely an “in the field” scientist in my mind. The project isn’t complete yet. He has to put together all of the information into this massive paper so that it is recorded and filed correctly. He was given information just two weeks ago that he also wants to reference and analyze in comparison to his own data. And during all of this last summer, we learned that his grandma has a lake named after her, her sister, and her cousin up in the Uintas. So this summer, I think, will involve another trip to find Lamarla Lake.

I’m very proud of Oliver for putting in so much effort and completing the beginning stages of a very large project for the herbarium. He loves nature so much and that love has just grown through his experiences in working with professors and staff at UVU. It’s hard to believe he’s almost done.