Start Date
2021
Description
In 1901, local botanist and teacher Emma Cole published Grand Rapids Flora: A Catalogue of the Flowering Plants and Ferns Growing Without Cultivation in the Grand Rapids Area. Despite immense changes in land use and development of Grand Rapids in the past 120 years, her work remains the most comprehensive floristic inventory of the area to date. • Develop floristic inventories of field sites. o Periodically visit each site May-August, documenting all plant species observed. o Make herbarium voucher specimens of all species in flower or in fruit to be pressed and dried. This is done in order to document the results of the study. • Calculate FQA values for each study site to compare their natural quality to each other and to historical data. In the sixth year of the Emma Cole Project, we continued visiting sites botanized by Emma Cole in the 1890s. Our work focused primarily on five sites in the Plaster Creek watershed and two wetland sites in Kent Parks’ Lowell Regional Greenspace. Notable Collections Methods Grand Rapids Flora Then and Now: Emma Cole Project 2021 Haley Weesies, Zachary Hartwig, Lucas Walker, Natalie Vredevoogd, Dr. Garrett Crow, Dr. Dave Warners. Calvin University, Grand Rapids, Michigan Acknowledgements We would like to thank Dr. Dave Warners and Dr. Garrett Crow for their mentorship and leadership, as well as the Calvin University Herbarium and the Calvin University Biology Department for workspace and research materials.
Our research:
- Contributed to this ongoing six-year project to compare present Grand Rapids today to her historical data.
- Documented changes occurring over time.
Recommended Citation
Weesies, Haley; Hartwig, Zachary; Walker, Lucas; Vredevoogd, Natalie; Crow, Garrett; and Warners, Dave, "Grand Rapids Flora Then and Now: Emma Cole Project 2021" (2021). Summer Research. 54.
https://digitalcommons.calvin.edu/summer_research/2021/Posters/54
Included in
Grand Rapids Flora Then and Now: Emma Cole Project 2021
In 1901, local botanist and teacher Emma Cole published Grand Rapids Flora: A Catalogue of the Flowering Plants and Ferns Growing Without Cultivation in the Grand Rapids Area. Despite immense changes in land use and development of Grand Rapids in the past 120 years, her work remains the most comprehensive floristic inventory of the area to date. • Develop floristic inventories of field sites. o Periodically visit each site May-August, documenting all plant species observed. o Make herbarium voucher specimens of all species in flower or in fruit to be pressed and dried. This is done in order to document the results of the study. • Calculate FQA values for each study site to compare their natural quality to each other and to historical data. In the sixth year of the Emma Cole Project, we continued visiting sites botanized by Emma Cole in the 1890s. Our work focused primarily on five sites in the Plaster Creek watershed and two wetland sites in Kent Parks’ Lowell Regional Greenspace. Notable Collections Methods Grand Rapids Flora Then and Now: Emma Cole Project 2021 Haley Weesies, Zachary Hartwig, Lucas Walker, Natalie Vredevoogd, Dr. Garrett Crow, Dr. Dave Warners. Calvin University, Grand Rapids, Michigan Acknowledgements We would like to thank Dr. Dave Warners and Dr. Garrett Crow for their mentorship and leadership, as well as the Calvin University Herbarium and the Calvin University Biology Department for workspace and research materials.
Our research:
- Contributed to this ongoing six-year project to compare present Grand Rapids today to her historical data.
- Documented changes occurring over time.