After three months in Colombia, I am back in Seattle. Looking back, this last trip was the most successful field trip I have conducted so far as a graduate student at the University of Washington and researcher with the Burke Museum Herbarium.

After three months in Colombia, I am back in Seattle. Looking back, this last trip was the most successful field trip I have conducted so far as a graduate student at the University of Washington and researcher with the Burke Museum Herbarium.

As I continue researching the impact of mountain building on the evolution of aquatic plants in Northern South America, my purpose in this new trip to Colombia was to collect plants in the Podostemaceae family. These plants live in fast-moving water and they resemble algae but produce flowers. I also aimed to collect species of Ludwigia, also known as water primroses.

Last year I had embarked on a similar field trip to collect them for my doctoral thesis. This time around I aimed to collect in many more areas and get all the samples needed for the project, with support from the UW Graduate School through the Boeing International Fellowship.

In the beginning, I traveled with my field assistant Maria Paula Contreras throughout the Caribbean region of Colombia. We visited the Piedras, Mendihuaca, Guachaca, Don Diego, San Salvador, Ancho, Palomino, Jerez, Badillo, and Guatapurí rivers. We collected river-weeds in each of them and were lucky to find all the plants in flower and in fruit. We moved by car, walked, used a boat and also went tubing down one of the rivers, managing to stop whenever we found Podostemaceae in flower.

We also visited Mompox, a historically important town located on the Magdalena river in a wetland to collect Ludwigia. Two female botanists by themselves, along roads that used to be unsafe to travel, was a reminder of the immense progress made with regards to safety in post-conflict Colombia. It also opened our eyes to the extent of how the political and social situation of a country can affect the ability of scientists to conduct field research.

Article Source: Burke Museum