Diario de mhernon

This Friday, I visited the Melzar Hatch Preserve. It was a sunny day, but it was still cool because of the wind. I think I managed to find all four main groups of land plants, including mosses, ferns, trees, and flowers. I also found an interesting-looking fuzzy caterpillar.
In terms of the four main groups of plants, I found some mosses, identified as forkmosses by iNaturalist; this is an example of bryophyta, or nonvascular plants. I also found an example of polypodiopsida, or seedless vascular plants, in cinnamon ferns. I found a pine tree, an example of gymnosperms, or non-flowering seed plants. All of the other plants I found, including barberries, goldenrods, and dandelions, were examples of angiosperms, or flowering plants. It was really nice to see this kind of biodiversity; there’s so much variation in appearance despite land plants being a monophyletic group. It was also interesting to see how they all these plants coexisted in the same space, despite being so different. This nature walk was really interesting, because it allowed me to look at and appreciate the diversity of land plants, and to see the distinct differences between the different types that I would usually ignore.

This Saturday, I visited some family, so I decided to explore some of the natural environment in my hometown. It was a cloudy and cool day after rain, but we still went for a walk at Melzar Hatch Preserve.
I found a lot of fungi, maybe since there's been so much rain this year. With most of them, I found them near dead or rotting plants, so it was obvious that these fungi are saprobes, surviving off nutrients from decomposing organic material. It was really interesting to see the variety in shapes and sizes. Some of them were the traditional type that you tend to think of when you think of mushrooms, while some looked more like coral or wood; additionally, some were pretty large, while others were much smaller. I guess it’s an example of the biodiversity present in one single kingdom, fungi.
It’s strange to think that we share a lot of DNA with something that appears so different from us; after all, both humans and fungi are eukaryotes, contain mitochondria and other organelles, and are heterotrophs. It shows that despite superficial differences, we’re actually quite similar. This was a fun experience, to get a closer look at a type of organisms I usually ignore!

Today, I went for a walk through the Pine Tree Preserve and the Chestnut Hill Reservoir. It was fairly sunny, since the clouds have seemed to have cleared up, and relatively cool due to the wind. I saw some interesting plants, as well as some fungi close to the ground, and a chipmunk (though it was moving so fast I barely got a picture). I also saw some birds on the rocks in the center of the Reservoir, but I couldn’t get a good picture. It's impressive to think about how so many unique species have evolved from just a couple of common ancestors; for example, the three plants I observed are so distinct from each other, yet they all are likely closely related. I'd be interested in learning more about how various selection pressures have shaped them over time. Overall, it was a good walk, and it’s nice to see how much biodiversity BC has right by campus.