Hello! My name is Lilly, and I am currently working in Cattaraugus County! I had an interesting start to my internship, as I started my summer in Delaware County. But my mentor and I had to reformat my project. I am still doing research into native wildflowers, although the composition of my research is slightly different. In Delaware County, I was originally supposed to be maintaining a couple native flowers in a flower garden and taking measurements on them to see if those flowers would be a good fit to be used in bouquets. Now, I am not only conducting vase life studies of wildflowers I find around my county, but I am also interviewing local florists and cut flower growers. I’m hoping I can use the results from the interviews to find what is important to them. With this data, I can figure out which wildflowers would best match their preferences.
Due to the slightly late start to my internship, I just finished my 5th week of work. In this time, I have monitored bloom time of wildflowers around my community, harvested some flowers for vase life studies, taken pictures of flowers for my poster presentation, taken time lapse videos of the vase flowers, called florists and cut flower growers, and visited a farmer’s market.
Some of the flowers I have looked at have included Fleabane (Erigeron annuus), Sulfur Cinquefoil (Potentilla recta), Soapwort (Saponaria officinalis), Moth Mullein (Verbascum Blattaria), American Blue Vervain (Verbena hastata), Saint John’s Wort (Hypericum perforatum), Musk Mallow (Malva moschata), Queen Anne’s Lace (Daucus carota), Butter and Eggs Toadflax (Linaria vulgaris), and Chicory (Cichorium intybus).
In my interviews with florists and cut flower growers, I have collected some interesting data. One thing that my mentor and I have discussed is that every flower person is going to have a different definition of “native” when it comes to native wildflowers. For example, Queen Anne’s Lace was introduced to North America in the 17th century, but you will see some people consider it a native wildflower and others do not agree that it is native. Due to this discrepancy, I have decided that I will have to highlight the differences between native and naturalized in my poster presentation.
On Saturday, July 20th, I also visited the farmer’s market in Warren, Pennsylvania. I interviewed a florist there, and she was the first person that I have interviewed that grows native wildflowers! It was a very insightful conversation, and I am very excited to continue interviewing people this week!
Below are some pictures I have taken of the flowers I have looked at (Fleabane, Soapwort, and Queen Anne’s Lace).
