Grass Week on Daily Species

 Grasses and palmettos under oaks.  Site of the mini bioblitz for this week’s Daily Species!

As you may have noticed, last week was pretty quiet around here and that was because I was severely limited in my activities by a nasty case of bronchitis.  Unfortunately, the illness hit me just as I was getting ready to go shoot a bunch more daily species, and I ran out of species in my archive!  Now, after a good dose of antibiotics, I am back to feeling good as new and getting back into the field.  It felt so good to get back outside as I spent three mornings in a row shooting and not only got caught up but am now back ahead of schedule as usual.  Thanks for bearing with me when it got quiet!

This week I am trying something a little different with the Daily Species.  On Sunday, as I was out looking for species to photograph, I came across a roadside scene that was quite striking due to the diversity of grasses and sedges that were blooming or going to seed.  I decided to do a very mini bioblitz and see how many different species of grasses I could photograph within about 20 yards of my car.  Now, since I am by no means a grass taxonomist, I only distinguished between very visibly different species.  I know there were more there, but I walked away with eight different specimens and through some help from folks on Facebook, they have all been identified!  The first was posted on Sunday, and they will run through next Monday.  Keep in mind that they all came from within about a 20 yard radius of the picture above.  Enjoy!