A little down the path I spotted a plant that I am particularly familiar with; it was a mustard plant. I stooped down and wrote out a description of the plant. A bed of leaves almost flush to the ground with each leaf, while not jagged in the traditional sense of the word, is jagged, going from at wider bit before becoming thinner and immediately becoming thicker again until getting to the tip where the wide part tapered off to the end of the leaf. Sprouting from the center of the leaf bunch was a tall singular stem about 6 inches tall that ended in a half sphere of yellow flowers, each with three or four petals each.
The third plant I came across was different from the first two in that there were leaves growing on the long stem, unlike on the first two plants, which only had the flowers, in addition the leaves growing on the stem were of a different pattern, however the base leaves followed the same pattern. The stem was almost two feet tall. The flower growth was the same as on the first two plants though.
The next specimen I came across was the largest mustard plant I came across growing to be about three feet tall, this plant followed the same main growth pattern as the first two plants with similar base leaf pattern and yellow flowers at the tips of the main stem, however it had a lager branching structure with many more flower clusters than the smaller plants.
Significantly further down the trail I came across a strand of mustard plants. These plants showed a range of variation, all of the mustard plants however shared the traits of having thick leaf growth at the base of the plant with a central stem that branched out and ended in a cluster of yellow flowers. Some had triangular shaped leaves growing up the main stem, however the majority had stems devoid of stems.
I also came across a variety of other wild life on the trip, including an especially fortunate sighting of a Greater Roadrunner, who followed me along the tail for almost 100 yards. Like Muir I was immersed in a wild landscape filled with wonders.
I also was able to get photos of yucca plants in various stages of growth, and even a yucca plat in bloom.
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| Blooming Yucca |
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| Yuccas abut to go into bloom |
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| Yucca Post Bloom |
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| Standard Yucca Plant |
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| Yucca flower |
Makenna,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading this blog post and thought it encapsulated the assignment well. I liked how you started out with a description of the lizard, and I thought it was a good way to give readers a taste of what you would be writing about in your post. Your descriptions of each of the mustard plants were also really well done. I liked how thorough you were in your observations, and the pictures were an added bonus that helped show what exactly you were talking about. I also liked how you incorporated other observations into your post, not just the mustard plant, which I thought was an effective way of getting more information of one environment.
I admired how you were able to easily identify what specimens you were looking at and your ability to figure out what type of plant/animal something is. I feel like this is a great skill to have, especially in this class!
I think one thing you could do to improve your posts is to be a little more clear in your descriptions. For example, the description for the first mustard plant was a little confusing (specifically, the sentence beginning with “a bed of leaves”). I think you may be able to describe the leaves in a more succinct way that would be easier for readers to understand. You could also add some more quotes from the various works that we have read in class in order to link what you are seeing in nature to the readings.
Overall, I thought your blog post was interesting, and I liked all of the pictures you included.
-Nakiessa M. Abbassi
Makena,
ReplyDeleteThis was definitely an interesting blog to read, and you did a great job gathering material to include in this post while on your trip to Wildwood. I really enjoyed your descriptions of what you saw, especially in the beginning with the lizard. You have a fascinating way of blending empirical data with qualitative observations that seems to add a more official air to the voice of the post. A sentence that I felt demonstrated this well (and is also one of my favorites) was, "It was perhaps three inches in length and at first glance the color of sand, upon close inspection however I realized it was covered in relatively regular white spots about the size of a pen head set upon an irregularly alternating background of black and light brown scales." This type of description coupled with the skill Nakiessa mentioned of being able to easily identify the specimens you saw (which anyone who's gone out in nature with you can confirm first-hand as quite spectacular), has the added effect of distinguishing your post as coming from more of an 'authority' rather than an 'amateur'.
However, though the style that you employ when describing specimens stays consistent throughout the post, it is not always entirely clear what you're trying to say. In your paragraph about the third mustard seed plant, you mention, "the leaves growing on the stem were of a different pattern, however the base leaves followed the same pattern," and again discuss more 'pattern's in the description of the fourth specimen. I found myself confused as to which pattern I was meant to observe, and even what this pattern was meant to be. Clarifying those types of repetitive signifiers in any similar situation in the future would be helpful.
It seemed to me that you focused mostly on leaf patterns/arrangements and length/height of plants. And while it was done well, I was wondering if there could have been more physical features or even quantitative identifiers that you might have also discussed? I really am just curious as I cannot claim to have studied mustard seed plants in depth before.
Overall, I enjoyed reading about your trip and the observations you recorded.
-Katie C.
(P.S. From a multimedia perspective I noticed one thing that would have been cool to do, would have been to arrange the yucca plant pictures in the order of its life cycle, from the “standard yucca” through “post bloom.” This is completely unrelated though and just would have been really interesting story to tell and thing to see)