Jade Wilkinson

Wildflower Project Lab Report

Introduction

Some of the purposes of the wildflower project were to use the skills we have worked on

in biology since the beginning of the school year, like work habits, asking questions,

inquiring/designing, analyzing data, and constructing explanations. The project was also

not just about picking flowers and classifying them. It was also about working on time

management and gaining a different perspective of our environment and the nature

around us. I did most of my collecting either in the woods at SSFS or close to where I

live. I found most of my flowers in wooded areas. I made sure to start collecting flowers

early, since wildflowers don’t typically last more than a couple of weeks, so I wanted to

collect them while they were still there. I also thought that I could get more wildflowers in

a short amount of time by starting to collect early. Some scientific questions I had during

this project were: how do wildflowers bloom without being planted? Where do

wildflowers get their common names from? Are there specific origins that certain

wildflowers come from?

Materials

We had to use several different materials to complete our projects. It was almost

impossible to complete the project without ​Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide,​ which was the

book we used to identify all the flowers we collected. We also had to use several paper

towels for pressing the flowers. We needed either mounting paper with spray adhesive,
or sticky photo pages for mounting (I used sticky photo pages). Finally, we needed a

binder to display all the flowers we collected.

Procedure

1. Identifying. We had to identify flowers using ​Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide​.

Sometimes, I had to use the three-digit code at the beginning of the book (how

many regular parts, type of leaves, placement of leaves). I had to use the code

very few times. I actually had some experience with flower identification prior to

this project, so I already knew what many of the flowers were. In this case, i

looked up the name in the index to get the page number.

2. Picking/pressing. Some flowers that are rare and not as abundant were not

allowed to be picked. We could still count them as part of our thirty-five total

flowers, but they had to be photographed. The photos had to include our student

ID to prove that they did not come from the internet. The photos also had to

include pictures of the leaves, petals, entire flower, and leaf attachment to stem.

For flowers that could be picked, we had to pick them just below the basal

leaves. Roots or flowers without leaves would not be accepted. To press the

flowers, we put them in between two paper towels and then stacked heavy books

on top to make the flowers dry faster (most flowers took about two weeks to dry

completely). I also wrote the common name of the flower on the paper towels.

Remembering which flower is which is difficult when you have thirty-five of them!
 3. Mounting/labeling. After the flowers finished drying, we had to mount and label

them. The flowers needed to be put in a binder for display. To mount the flowers,

I used self-adhesive photo pages, since I read that the adhesive spray can come

out messy, and I like to be as neat as possible. We also had to organize the

flowers in alphabetical order by family name. To label each flower, I went back to

the database containing all of my flowers and printed out a label containing all

the information needed for each flower (scientific name, common name, habitat,

date collected, collector, city and county found in). I then placed the labels in the

bottom right corner of each page.

Discussion & Reflection

During this project, I thought it may be difficult to find thirty-five different types of flowers,

but it turned out to be much easier than I thought. I learned that you had to be careful

with each flower, since I had to pick a couple flowers twice because the petals fell off

while I was pressing them. I didn’t dislike anything about this project. I enjoyed

identifying all the different species of flowers, but I mostly enjoyed mounting them and

collecting them. According to my data, I noticed that all flowers in the same family look

similar. I found that the flowers of grape hyacinth and lily-of-the-valley, which are both in

the lily family, looked almost exactly alike. I also noticed that all the flowers I collected in

the mustard family looked similar. I also noticed that some flowers (spring beauty,

common blue violet, jack-in-the-pulpit, mayapple) were very abundant and easy to find.

Other flowers (celandine poppy, toad trillium, hepatica) were not as easy to find and you
had to look deeper to find them. I would say that overall, it wasn’t hard to find flowers,

since I already knew where the ones that weren’t as common were located on campus.

Conclusion

Using the data I collected, I would not have been able to answer all of my scientific

questions. I would have to go into deeper research to answer the question of how

wildflowers bloom without being planted. I can partly respond to where flowers get their

common names from. Part of their common name could be the color of the flower

(violet) and other common names could be developed from something the flower looks

like on the outside (jack-in-the-pulpit, spring beauty). Like the first question, I think I

would also have to do separate research to figure out what origins different wildflowers

come from. I have two new questions: Are there abiotic factors that make trillium and

hepatica rare around this area? Are there abiotic factors that make spring beauty and

violets common in this area? One scientific claim that I can make using my data is that

April is the month that contains the most wildflowers. This claim supports my data

because all the flowers I collected were collected in April. Also, I went back to the

woods on the SSFS campus in May, and the only flowers that were left were the

common ones.