June update - Everything

Since arriving in Colorado, my life has been incredibly busy and interesting, which is why I have not updated my blog until now.  This post is a quite poor in terms of topic organization, I apologize.

Researches

One of my many research projects is to examine if Mertensia plants with different floral orientation are influenced by rain differently, and one measure of this effect is the number of nutlets (seeds) each plant produce.  To test this, I constructed and placed a rain shelter over a plot with several Mertensia plants, manipulated floral orientation (upward or pendant) of haphazardly chosen plants, supplemented pollen to these plants, and waited until the end of the flowering season to collect the nutlets.

July update - Plants & Mushroom

Here are some of the flowering plants and one of the many fungi that I saw this month.

Shooting Stars (Dodecatheon pulchellum) at Kebler Pass.  Apparently these flowers have no nectar but are visited by bumblebees for their pollen.

Flowering plants of Gunnison National Forest, Colorado

Even though my summer field season has finished, I still have three blog posts about Colorado in draft mode that I want to share.  Here is one about most of the flowering plants that I photographed during the summer (and then I will post photos of insects and birds).  I have arranged these images mostly by the time I saw the plants (i.e., phenology) and/or genus.

One of the earliest flowering plant that I saw.  I couldn't identify it at the spot, but it is in the Parsley family (Apiaceae).

Daily life in Colorado - Part 6

My work here in Colorado is coming to an end as my plants are producing nutlets and ready to be collected.  Technically, we will leave this coming Saturday, but we may stay for an extra couple of days to tidy up all the loose ends.

Research

Each Mertensia flower has four ovules and thus can produce up to four nutlets per flower.

Daily life in Colorado - Part 5

Random photos taken from last week.

On the way to work one day, I saw the soft morning sun shining through the lupines.

Hiking to my tallest mountain so far - Avery Peak (3,854 m)

Yesterday, I hiked from RMBL at 2,891 m to the tallest place I have ever been to on Earth - Avery Peak (3,854 m).  It was quite fun (and tiring) hiking up/down a steep mountain side, but the view at the top was worth it!

View of the Gothic Mountain from the other side.  Gothic Mountain is 3,850 m and definitely another mountain I want to hike to before I go back to Canada.