The big snow got me a bit worried about getting out to Argentina to join Tiina Sarkinen, who has been there for a week working in the herbarium with our colleague Gloria Barboza and her students. But it all looks fine - flight is not yet cancelled and so I am on the way! Hard to imagine laeving this snow and ice behind.
Packing for a long field trip is always a challenge - what to take, what to leave. My house and office have been piled up with the many items needed for field and herbarium work. Camera, plant press, secateurs (for cutting branches to press as specimens), camera, sunscreen, first aid kit - the list is endless!
Because our field trips are not only just about going in the forest to collect nightshades, but also about working with our colleagues in institutions like the Natural History Museum in other countries, I need to take all the bits and pieces for that sort of work as well. I have printed out many annotation slips - small identification chits I will place on the specimens in other collections to indicate my identification of these specimens - they will say I identified this specimen as a particular species on a particular date. This is how botanists leave the evidence of their use of hte specimens.
I have never been to the collections in Cordoba, Argentina before (our first stop), so am really excited to see what I find! I know there are specimens of a species in a group I am currently working with - Solanum mortonii - that I have never seen; we don't have any specimens of this in the NHM collections. Exciting!
I am also looking forward to seeing what Tiina has found in her travels so far - in a strange set of coincidences some Chinese colleagues of mine (see the eggplant blog from 2010) are visiting Gloria in Cordoba as well, so we will have a chance to have a truly global conversation about Solanaceae. One of the great things about working on a particular plant family like the nightshades is that colleagues are everywhere and the spirit of working together is very strong.
So in an hour I will leave for the airport - next post will really be from the field!