Seedless vascular plant hike: lycophytes and monilophytes

This term I passed out the plant list the class before, at the end of the banana patch cleaning day. I told the class to look over the list of plants we might be seeing on the hike.

On the way across campus we picked up students. As I passed the gym I picked up cyanobacteria - Nostoc. I explained the Nostoc in the shade at the edge of the agriculture building. I skipped mosses.


The upper open area was devoid of Lycopodiella cernua, and I missed the couple of Dicranopteris linearis fronds which were present.

Jade, Shane, Darion, Sandralynn, and Jaime

Off to the left side of the trail I found a nice example of a Nephrolepis "rehdil" fern with fertile fronds and explained this fern and sori to the class.


Farther down on the right I encountered Davallia solida which also had fertile fronds, so I showed the class this one as well. No one knew their local name for this, which caught me off guard.

Kiyoe with Asplenium nidus

I then used the variety of ferns at the top of the slope including Haploteris elongata, Cyclosorus maemonensis, and Asplenium nidus. I had trouble at first locating Microsorum scolopendria, the fern having all but vanished from the mango tree trunk. I did locate a few fronds back at the Asplenium laserpitiifolium.  With the M. scolopendria and A. nidus, I explained how plants can have cultural meanings. There was also the lycophyte Huperzia phlegmaria present on the mango tree. I did not see strobili, but a plant on the back of the mango would later be seen that had strobili. Walking up one see's a whole 'nother side of things, literallly.

Rennie Glen

I zig-zagged down the slope, stopping at the Angiopteris evecta.

Sandralynn

Sandralynn Damarlane had already done well naming ferns at the slope top, she was the only student who knew paiwed by name. 

Sandralynn referred to the structures at the base of the paiwed as "ears" - an apt description.

Shanaleen Kerson, Angiopteris evecta frond behind her

Kira and Shanaleen, a portion of the A. evecta frond between them

Examining tehlikinwel

Antrophyum reticulatum (G. Forst) (indigenous) (Syn callifolium Blume, Antrophyum ponapense).
Pohnpeian: tehlikinwel

In the forest, Sharisey and Kiyoe

Pelida

Sharisey and Kiyoe. 

This term the class ran until 5:00 in the forest. Even at 5:00 Kiyoe, Sharisey, Darion, and Shanaleen remained back, exploring their way back up slope looking at ferns. All four seemed genuinely interested in the plants and the forest.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Plotting polar coordinates in Desmos and a vector addition demonstrator

Image
In an earlier post I noted that Desmos did not directly plot polar coordinates. Not only was I incorrect, but Desmos responded to my blog to correct me! Although I had at some point seen that one could define a function f(x)=3x+5 and then have Desmos calculate f(6), I had not absorbed how this might be used to plot polar coordinates. The above works beautifully . Realizing that I could effectively program Desmos, I applied this thinking to demonstrating how to add two vectors when given the magnitudes m and the direction angles theta. The graph calculates the i and j components for the two vectors and then adds the vectors, graphically displaying the result while also providing information on the magnitude and direction of the vector sum. m1 and theta1 are the magnitude and direction angle for one of the two vectors, m2 and theta2 are the magnitude and direction for the other vector. All four are dynamically interactive and can be changed. The diagram purports to illustra
Read more

Setting up a boxplot chart in Google Sheets with multiple boxplots on a single chart

Image
The  Google Statistics  add-on for Google Sheets can display multiple boxplots in a single chart. The key is the layout of the data. One column should be the variable by which the data is to be grouped, the other column should be the data to be box plotted. Set up the Statistics add-on with the data to be plotted as the variable, and the grouping column as the "by" variable. In this image I had deselected all but the boxplot option, the result was the appearance of the Moment, Standard errors, and Confidence intervals options. The default is apparently a 95% confidence interval for the mean. The result is multiple boxplots on a single chart with a common scale. The new tab that is created also quotes 95% confidence intervals for the mean. Note that as of 2018 the Google Statistics add-on cannot be found by search in the add-ons. In addition, as of May 2018 the add-on no longer verifies, possibly due to the add-on not having been updated since August 2017. One may ha
Read more

Traditional food dishes of Micronesia

Image
Clara, Jennette, and Joanie presented ground hard taro cooked in an umw, effectively a hot rock oven. Pohnpeian: rotama. Pingelapese: sero. Mwoakillese: rodma. Mortlockese: Amahd. Kosrae: rodoma. After cooking in an umw the rotama is pounded with the petiole of a palm frond. Rotama is made from hard or swamp taro, known as mwahng on Pohnpei, mweian on Pingalap, pula in Mortlockese, and pahsruhk on Kosrae. In traditional times on the outer islands the women had primary responsibility for tending the taro while the men handled fishing and climbing tasks. Joesen and Noeleen presented fermented breadfruit from the outer islands of Yap such as Woleai and Eauripik. The raw ingredients were actually brought in from Yap, Noeleen prepared the maare.  The leaf wrap is ti leaf - Cordyline fruticosa. Pauleen, Barnson, Trisha, Verginia, Con-ray, and Maylanda from Kitti, Pohnpei brought in mahi umw, koahpnoair koakihr, and uht sukusuk. Above is breadfruit umw, mahi umw, one o
Read more