In my plant taxonomy class our major project is to establish an herbarium (which is basically a collection of all the plants found in the area) for an old property the nature conservancy recently bought that has no nature trails or anything. So the first time our class goes out to the property, the professor tells us about some of the rarer plants in the area, one in particular caught my interest, its called Indian Pipe, or Ghost Plant. It grows in dark places, usually in forests, its common in some areas, but here its quite rare and as such I had never seen it. So, I'm going around collecting samples of plants with my big cumbersome plant press out in one of the many meadows of the property along with the rest of the class, when I decide to break away into the forest to go looking for ghost plants.
Keep in mind that I was just wearing shorts and a T-shirt, which was a BIG mistake with all the briers, chiggers and ticks in the woods around here. Everything was going good at first, I was careful with where I walked, made sure I didn't get cut by too many briers and I occasionally stopped to gather plant samples, unfortunately no ghost plants were found. In my overzealousness, I got lost and I don't know if you've ever been lost in a very old forest before with little light, but its pretty **** scary. I started panicking and just running to and fro trying to find my way back to the meadows. It took me close to an hour, but I found my way out by luck, out of breathe, cut up by briers, covered with ticks and chigger bites and with no ghost plants....
I told my friend about this experience and he said he wanted to see this forest, because old growth forests are rare sights now a days and big trees are cool to normal people too I guess plus I told him about ghost plants and that peaked his attention. So we went to the property about a week later and walked through the forest again, this time I was sure to have a compass app on my phone. I was more prepared this time, I wore long sleeves and pants, but still got covered in ticks and chiggers. We walked in the woods for a long while even until we reached the property line, but found no ghost plants...
The very next day, my class goes back to the property to take more samples, I break off into the woods by myself again, a different part of the woods this time. The ghost plant was becoming a sort of white whale to me, I had spent so much time looking for it that I couldn't stop until I did. After a while of walking in the woods some more, I reached a place that was almost all pine trees and there growing by one of the pine trees was a patch of ghost plants, which I immediately photographed
I was so happy I took a stalk of it and ran out of the woods to find my professor. I found her and I was all like WHOA and she was all like WHOA(couldn't think of any better way to describe it lol). No one else found a sample of ghost plant on the property so I know mine will be accepted into the final herbarium, which is awesome
I went to student health services to get all my bug bites looked at, the doctor called in a second doctor because the bites were so prolific, they both eventually decided they were chigger bites and that it was the worst they had ever seen. They gave me steroids to help with the itching and redness, they make me feel even more anxious and jittery than I normally do. But it was totally worth all the pain and itching to experience finding a cool plant like that
Keep in mind that I was just wearing shorts and a T-shirt, which was a BIG mistake with all the briers, chiggers and ticks in the woods around here. Everything was going good at first, I was careful with where I walked, made sure I didn't get cut by too many briers and I occasionally stopped to gather plant samples, unfortunately no ghost plants were found. In my overzealousness, I got lost and I don't know if you've ever been lost in a very old forest before with little light, but its pretty **** scary. I started panicking and just running to and fro trying to find my way back to the meadows. It took me close to an hour, but I found my way out by luck, out of breathe, cut up by briers, covered with ticks and chigger bites and with no ghost plants....
I told my friend about this experience and he said he wanted to see this forest, because old growth forests are rare sights now a days and big trees are cool to normal people too I guess plus I told him about ghost plants and that peaked his attention. So we went to the property about a week later and walked through the forest again, this time I was sure to have a compass app on my phone. I was more prepared this time, I wore long sleeves and pants, but still got covered in ticks and chiggers. We walked in the woods for a long while even until we reached the property line, but found no ghost plants...
The very next day, my class goes back to the property to take more samples, I break off into the woods by myself again, a different part of the woods this time. The ghost plant was becoming a sort of white whale to me, I had spent so much time looking for it that I couldn't stop until I did. After a while of walking in the woods some more, I reached a place that was almost all pine trees and there growing by one of the pine trees was a patch of ghost plants, which I immediately photographed
I was so happy I took a stalk of it and ran out of the woods to find my professor. I found her and I was all like WHOA and she was all like WHOA(couldn't think of any better way to describe it lol). No one else found a sample of ghost plant on the property so I know mine will be accepted into the final herbarium, which is awesome
I went to student health services to get all my bug bites looked at, the doctor called in a second doctor because the bites were so prolific, they both eventually decided they were chigger bites and that it was the worst they had ever seen. They gave me steroids to help with the itching and redness, they make me feel even more anxious and jittery than I normally do. But it was totally worth all the pain and itching to experience finding a cool plant like that
