Visiting Canadian Museum of Nature's Natural Heritage Campus

For a part of my PhD research, I will visit several herbariums and examine specimens in the genus Mertensia spp.  I will be studying at the relationship between morphological (reproductive and vegetative) and phenological (timing of flowering) traits in genus Mertensia.  Today, I took the bus to Canadian Museum of Nature's Natural Heritage Campus in Gatineau and spent most of the day looking at herbarium specimens.

The collection room.

One of the many specimens I looked at.

Mertensia drummondii collected in Wollaston Peninsula (previously, Wollaston Land) on August 11, 1915.  Some of the traits I was measuring included: corolla width, corolla length, length of stamen, length of stigma, and difference between stigma and anther.

This is Mertensia longiflora collected in Grant County, Oregon on June 3, 1953.  I didn't measure anything for this specimen, but I like how its collector (Dr. Arthur Cronquist) spread individual flowers around the main plant.

Food and drinks are not allowed in the collection room, so I didn't eat my lunch until after 4 PM.  I ate my lunch in the cafeteria with an Amargasaurus cazaui skeleton in the room.  So cool!

And when I was heading out to catch the bus back to Ottawa, it was snowing again, just after most snow had melted this past weekend.  I think/hope it will melt by tomorrow though.