Lilli Serota

5/23/19
Biology
Introduction:
This Wildflower project is made to study the diversity of plants in our local ecosystem as
well as genetics, ecology, and botany. This project also develops our organizational and time
management skills. Especially, the wildflower project, develops an appreciation for the beauty of
nature. I have started looking for flowers everywhere I go, and have noticed the beauty of
wildflowers in each place I walk. So far in my collecting, I have picked flowers near Scott House
and in the woods at Sandy Spring Friends School, and throughout the roads and parks in my
neighborhood in Olney. My scientific research questions are; 1) How does temperature change
affect the growth of different types of wildflowers? 2) How does the amount of nutrients in the
soil affect different the growth and health of different types of wildflowers? And 3) How does
the amount of sunlight affect the appearance of different types of wildflowers?

Materials:
1. Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide​ to classify and identify my flowers.
2. Paper towels to press and dry my flowers.
3. Various heavy textbooks to press and dry my wildflowers.
4. A Google spreadsheet for my database.
5. Avery Label Merge to create my labels.
6. A scrapbook
7. Spray adhesive to mount the flowers to each page.
8. Newspaper and wax paper to keep my area clean when mounting.
9. Various markers, kinds or paper, and decorative pieces for decorating my book.
10. Tweezers to help place the small petals and pieces of my flower when mounting.

Procedure:
1) Identifying wildflowers:
1. Before picking a wildflower, flip to the front of the ​Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide
and find the classifying page.
2. Define the flower within the flower type, plant type, and leaf type classifications.
3. Use the code you have gathered to find the possible page number of your flower
in the locator key.
4. Flip through these pages and find the flower that matches yours in habitat,
appearance, and description.
5. If you cannot find your flower, try using a different code.

2) Collecting wildflowers:
 1. Find any area outside of campus driveways and away from campus buildings or
residencies.
2. Once you have found a wildflower that is outside of a garden, is abundant and
native in the area, and is not planted, identify it using your Newcomb’s
Wildflower Guide as explained in the steps above.
3. Once identified, pick your wildflower right before the root, or you may cut off the
roots later.
4. Ensure you have picked at least one basal leaf if they are present.
5. Record the scientific name, common name, family name, city, county, state,
habitat, date collected, ID book, page number, and collector name in a Google
Spreadsheet.

3) Pressing wildflowers:
1. Place flower on a paper towel with all its parts including basal leaves (make sure
roots are not present).
2. If possible, place the flower head face down so that all petals are open.
3. Spread each part and leaf of the flower out so that they are flat and preferably not
touching the other leaves or petals.
4. Make sure to write the identification and habitat of the flower on the paper towel
to stay organized.
5. Gently fold the paper towel over your flower and place it in or under a heavy
book.
6. Close the book carefully so you don’t mess up your flower.
7. Let the flower press and dry for at least 1-2 weeks.

4) Mounting wildflowers:
1. Go to a ventilated area and take a pressed and dried flower out of the book and
place it on either newspaper or wax paper.
2. Have a blank sheet of paper nearby while you lightly spray the back side of the
flower with spray adhesive.
3. Before it dries, gently place the flower on the paper and let the glue dry for 24
hours.

5) Labeling wildflowers:
1. Open a Google Docs document.
2. Click on “Add-ons” in the top left.
3. Click on “Get add-ons…”.
4. Search “Avery Label Merge” and click on the first option.
5. Drag over the Avery Label Merge and click on “New merge”.
 6. Once in the Avery Label Merge window, click on “Name tag” and the second
sizing option.
7. This will open directions for the next steps and a sidebar.
8. In the sidebar, choose the Wildflower Database spreadsheet and click on each
header name.
9. Click “merge” and customize the new labels.
10. Print these out on either normal paper or the Avery Label stickers that match the
size you chose.
11. Paste the labels on the sheet corresponding to your mounted flower.
12. Be sure to organize your flowers by family and then alphabetical order in your
binder or book.

Discussion:
In this project I learned that organization is the key to staying on top of work, I learned
about the parts of a wildflower and how to classify them, and I gained the skills of picking,
identifying, pressing, and mounting wildflowers correctly. I also realized how spring changes
and how certain flowers come and go. At the beginning of this project, I was picking specific
flowers that I no longer saw later on and vice versa. A mistake I made in the process, was that I
didn’t immediately identify some flowers after picking them, which caused me to have multiple
flowers that weren’t identified, ultimately adding stress and backing up my progress. If I were to
do this project again, I would be sure to be more thorough in my classifying so that I could
immediately identify the flowers and stay on track. Even though this mistake backed up my
progress, coming to Academic Help periods and asking for help was a successful way to get back
on top of my work. I was also efficient in the time that I picked my flowers so that I wasn’t
rushing last minute. Once identifying my flowers, I was sure to write on the paper towel what
that flower was so that I stayed organised, as well as immediately putting the information into
my database. During this project, I really enjoyed the process of walking outside and in the
woods with friends or family to look for flowers. This part of the project was super fun and the
picking and classifying of the flowers themselves was very interesting to me. Once having
picked all my flowers, last minute identifications and writing for my lab write-up was less
enjoyable. In my final data, I found trends such as; four of my flowers were in the Composite
Family, four were in the Mint Family, and five were in the Mustard Family. These three families
were most common in my data.

Conclusion:
In response to my three research questions, I found that my data cannot support an
answer to how temperature change affects the growth in flowers, but I have found that drops in
temperature affect if flowers are open or closed. I found that my data cannot support an answer
to how the amount of nutrients in the soil affects wildflowers because I did not record the
amount of nutrients. I did find that sunlight affected the appearance of wildflowers, because
cloudy days caused the flowers to close, while sunny days caused the flowers to fully open. If I
were to do this project again, I would ask how habitat affects the kind of wildflowers that grow
there, and how location, based on if the flower is located near people or in the wilderness, affects
the kinds of flowers that grow there. Mustard Family wildflowers are more prominent in Sandy
Spring, Maryland, than other families of wildflowers.