tsslimemold's Journal

Today I visited Oliver Park in Capital Hill. It's situated between SW 29th St and Grand Blvd (aka SW 36th St) with parking on the latter street. I was initially attracted to the area from the huge swaths of plains coreopsis that blanketed sections of the park. What's interesting to me is that it seems relatively neglected and so is overgrown by a mixture of more aggressive native plants and invasive grasses like Johnson Grass. I was pleasantly surprised to find some isolated Clasping Coneflower. A central feature of the park is a pond. It doesn't smell the best but is home to a few different aquatic plants such as sedges, cattails, ludwigia, and long leaf pondweed. It featured in island near the center that was home to several birds. In fact this place had a lot of birds living there. I need to get a better camera in order to help ID them more easily. You'd think that a place without a lot of trees wouldn't have a lot of birds but it seems like the water and tall grass here provides the perfect environment for them. It makes me wonder how birds native to prairie environments used to live surviving among the grasses.

Anyways those are some of my initial thoughts. I noticed that there aren't any concerted efforts to watch this park so I'm going to make that my focus over the growing season. Here's hoping I document some good stuff.

Today I posted my 100th observation! It was made yesterday on the 25th of September, 2022. My first observation was made on the 16th of September so it took me less than two weeks or 11 days to reach this milestone. Being out of work has aided me in this process however, as of today that has now changed.

Anyways I wanted to reflect about my motivations for using this site and what I've learned thus far. I've been interested in the world around me for as long as I can remember and that's really what this is for me. I've thought for a while how strange it is that I couldn't identify the grass under my feet nor the trees that grew around me so that's what I've set out to do. I can thank Crime Pays but Botany Doesn't a lot for my current interest in plants, especially asters. His videos on identifying plants have been really instructive and interesting. He's been doing a lot of videos in Texas recently which have been helpful in learning Oklahoma plants. His focus on geology especially has influenced me a lot in my research. Understanding geology helps me understand where certain kinds of plants are growing and why. Sediment along with climate lays down the terms for what plants need to be capable of to survive and isolated areas of sediment become especially interesting for creating islands reminiscent of the finches Darwin observed.

My 100th observation was Symphyotrichum divaricatum. This plant first caught my attention when I saw a large bush of it growing at 89th Street before going to see OM perform. Since then it's something I've been trying to wrap head around as an aster. It's a very wide spread plant but still difficult to ID because of how many other genus' share the morphology of Symphyotrichum's flowers. If I've learned anything is learning how to take good photos that are useful for differentiating because different species within a genus. As I continue to learn about grasses, trees, and shrubs that has also been an important lesson which I am continuing to improve on.

Returning back to Crime Pays and speciation for a second, Joey Santore has really turned my attention to arid climates especially deserts. Cactaceae especially has caught my fondness for its amazing number of adaptions from its camouflaging and mimicry to it's use of CAM photosynthesis. For this reason I have my eye on eventually checking out the gypsum deposits in West Oklahoma, Wichita Mountains, and Black Mesa. I can't wait to see what those places have to offer and see where I go from here.