Rebecca Megginson

A Block Biology
Alice Chmil
5/30/19

Introduction:

The purpose of this project is to become proficient at identifying flowers, learn how to manage
time and organize, and write a comprehensive report of the project. The comprehensive report
allows students to write and investigate their scientific process, as well as analyze and reflect on
the content and the process of the wildflower project. It also allowed us to use our data to create
questions and then answer those questions using evidence. I conducted most of my collecting in
the woods of Sandy Spring, Maryland and the neighborhoods of Rockville, Maryland. My
scientific questions include: Why do some flowers grow together while others don’t? How does
fluctuating weather affect blooming times? Does more rain have a positive or negative effect on
the majority of local wildflowers?

Materials:
- Newcomb’s Wildflower guide for identifying flowers
- Dictionary for pressing flowers
- Paper towels and pen for pressing and labeling flower
- Sticky notes for labeling flower
- Binder and sticky photo pages to display flowers
- Labels to label each wildflower
- Computer to log flowers in the database and write lab write-up of the project
- iPad and student ID to take pictures of rare or endangered species
-
Procedure:

Identifying:
1. See flower and make sure it is not rare, endangered, or cultivated
2. Find the 3 traits of the flower that are each assigned a number that becomes a 3 digit
locator code to look for in the locator key (petal number, leaf arrangement, and leaf type)
3. Use the dichotomous key to find page number go look for your flower
4. Read through descriptions on the page and look at the drawings of flowers
5. Navigate to another page as instructed on the first page to identify flower if needed
6. and collect with basal leaves and other parts intact, without roots
7. Find the number for your flower in the locator key
8. Collect the flower with basal leaves and other parts intact, without roots
Collecting:
1. Look for wildflowers in different environments
2. Once spotted, make sure the flower is not rare or endangered, cultivated, or already
collected
3. If rare or endangered, take 4 different pictures (overall view, closeup of flower, closeup
of a leaf, and a closeup of the arrangement of leaves on stem) with student ID in the
picture.
4. If not rare or endangered, identify and subsequently pick from basal leaves but not roots.
5. Put on paper towel with species, date, and page found written
6. Press in book by placing flower with petals opened
Pressing:
1. Input data of pressed flower into database
2. Place paper towel with labeled flower in heavy book with a sticky note denoting the
location and species of flower
3. Do not layer flowers
4. Wait for 2 weeks to allow paper towel to absorb moisture from flower and flatten it
Mounting:
1. Take pressed flower and stick onto sticky photo page where you’d like flower to be
placed
2. After placing flower on sticky paper, cover with plastic sheet attached to photo page
Labeling:
1. After identifying flower and writing down information on the paper towel, transfer this
information to online database
2. Find other needed information such as family and habitat
3. Once all flowers in database, turn each set of data into a label that is printed and glued to
the piece of paper where the flower is mounted

Discussion:
The wildflower project included pressing, identifying, logging and mounting 35 wildflowers
in a neat, organized binder or photo album. It included an in-depth lab write up as well. I
learned that there is a lot of variation within one species. Conversely, I learned that there are
defining characteristics that are present within all flowers of a family. As the project went on, I
could hypothesize about what families a few of the flowers belonged to before identifying
them. One of my biggest mistakes was picking flowers before identifying them, and
subsequently letting them wilt since I wanted to identify them without being pressed. This led
me to repeatedly pick the same flowers instead of just identifying while they were still on the
ground or freshly picked. This rule was actually stressed in the guidelines, and as the project
went on, I realized it was stressed for a very good reason. If I did this project again, I would
identify my flowers before I picked them and log each one of them thoroughly in one go,
instead of being lazy and leaving more work for myself later on. Picking and finding flowers
for each of the deadlines without a huge struggle went well since I looked for flowers in
different habitats around SSFS (i.e. deciduous forest and fields) and often found flowers in my
neighborhood while walking my dog. I enjoyed looking for flowers in the deciduous forest
around SSFS and writing the more reflective sections of the lab write-up, but I found
identifying and logging the flowers to be tedious and mundane, so I often put that part of the
project off. One trend in my data was that all of the flowers I collected from the Mint Family
(examples include henbit, bugles, purple dead-nettle, and ground-ivy) grew in fields or lawns
quite close together. Another was that all of my flowers in the Figwort Family were classified
as speedwells, but they all bloomed at varying times. The ivy-leaved speedwell (4/8/19) and
Persian speedwell (4/4/19) bloomed first, while the thyme-leaved speedwell (4/17/19)
bloomed after them. The third trend in my data was that all my flowers in the Buttercup
Family also grew in either field or lawns quite close together.

Conclusion:
I can’t fully answer my first research question, why do some flowers grow together while others
don’t? Because I didn’t collect enough data to get a well-researched answer, but I do know that it
probably came about through evolution, with different species getting different traits (either
close or far apart) over time to survive and reproduce more. I also can’t really answer my
second research question, How does fluctuating weather affect blooming times? Because I only
collected around 32 flowers in one area with the same weather (except for a few flowers in
Pennsylvania), so I don't have enough data to make a conclusion. Thirdly, my research question
Does more rain have a positive or negative effect on the majority of local wildflowers? Is also
difficult to answer because of my limited data surrounding local wildflowers. I do know from
conversations with science teachers that different plants are adapted to thrive/be resilient towards
different levels of rain, so it really depends on the species. Two new scientific research questions
if I did this project again are How do blooming times vary between Rockville, Maryland and
Lancaster, Pensylvania? And Do plants of the same family tend to grow in similar habitats and
clusters?
I claim that most common Maryland wildflowers of the Mint family grow in fields or lawns. All
of the wildflowers of the Mint family that I collected in Maryland (henbit, bugles, purple dead-
nettle, and ground-ivy) grew in lawns or fields, which supports the claim that most common
Maryland wildflowers of the Mint family grow in fields or lawns.