THE HUNT FOR LILAEOPSIS

I was able to get out from behind my computer at work this week and spend 3 days field sampling along the Gulf Coast (thanks to Jay being willing to hold down the fort and the fact that coworkers who would usually be tasked with field work being unable to travel). Christy and I left at 5:30am on Wednesday and returned to Vicksburg at 5:30pm on Friday, traveling through 4 states and covering 1300 miles driving, with about 14 site visits that produced 7 population collections of Lilaeopsis carolinensis and 1 of L. chinensis. I wasn't sure what to expect from the trip (because I'm not a botanist, and I had never traveled with Christy before... and I hadn't done field work of any kind since before James was born about 5.5 years ago), but I had a great time and learned a lot. It was exhausting (we worked pre-sunrise to post-sunset), but we were really happy with our collections and I got to see a lot of the south that I hadn't seen before (even after living in Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, and Florida for the past 12 years). So glad I had the opportunity to go, and yet so happy to get home safely to see my family - it's hard being away from home! I have only left James overnight twice (once for a conference for 2 nights when I was largely pregnant with Cora, and once for 22 hours with his grandparents while Jay and I tried to get a good night sleep, when Cora was a year old and had yet to STTN and we desperately needed a little break!) and Cora the one time, so it was really weird being on my own. And while it was nice to just have to worry about myself and not have any chores for a few days, even with Christy's company, I constantly thought of my babies and Jay, wondering what they were up to and if they were all ok and happy. Jay is a trooper, of course, and there was nothing for me to worry about, but I still missed them like crazy. Anyway, here are a few photos from our trip (I didn't take them at every site, though I should have - we saw some cool stuff!):

Christy sampling the pond at Fontainbleau State Park in Mandeville, Louisiana

That's L. carolinensis, the clump in the upper/middle right

This aquatic plant likes ditches...

Beautiful ditches in the middle of state parks and wildlife refuges...

And also ditches in suburban neighborhoods...

And along 2-lane highways in back-country towns...

There it is again - the one that looks like grass (spatulate, jointed grass)

The other species, L. chinensis, was REALLY hard to find. Somehow we finally spotted it at our last site, here at a boat ramp in the Florida panhandle.

This is why it was hard to find... 8cm or less in length.