Native Plant Giveaway

In other news, I had an exciting opportunity today to get some plants. A group on campus was giving away cuttings and seedlings of native species to help support pollinator populations, and I picked a few up!

On the left are two Purple Coneflower (Echinacea pallida) seedlings, which produce flowers that bees love. They also have a long history of medicinal uses, which can be traced back to First Nations people from this part of the country. On the right is a little prickly pear, which apparently is another native species - I had no idea we had cacti here, but apparently this is part of their range! When I go back home, the Coneflower will go in the garden. The cactus will probably go in a pot, because I'm fairly sure our winters will be too cold for it. Hopefully I can keep them alive for the last three weeks of the semester until I can transfer them out of their little plastic containers.

Also excitingly, my plant biology professor brought in some fossil specimens she and her students had collected at an old coal mine yesterday. These came from the carboniferous forests which were part of this landscape 300 million years ago, and some of them are so well-preserved as to actually still have plant tissue in them. Apparently, they had collected so many fossils that my professor let us keep some of her examples if we wanted. The large fossil in the bottom image has now been added to my collection. I really want to go rock-hunting around here sometime!