Collection

I did not realize how many native poisonous plants Kansas has. Our instructor for AGRON 260 had two horses on his land, they were older but really nice. Though it is private if you take the course he would bring you there at some point but almost never the same place twice. I enjoyed taking the 2 hr AGRON 260 to go out and collect plants. Though many of the plant collection areas that he took us to were in weird locations it was fun to explore. When the class was finished the teacher got us ice cream which was amazing. The only bad part was how hot it got when we went outside at the beginning of the year. we were not out to long but everyone did get sunburns at least once. After that we remembered to either wear long sleeves or to wear sunscreen. But luckily we had mostly fall weather. When going out and finding plants we had to be careful sometimes because some of the plants had thorns on them when you did not expect it  and would stick you if you grabbed the plant too aggressively. We learned a lot about the different soils of areas and when and where different plants would grow and thrive in and what it would actually take to kill some. One time when the teacher took us out another college student was not paying attention to his driving and backed into the van we were all in. luckily the school vans are pretty indestructible but it did get a dent and crushed his light on his car. We always had something fun happen in that class. The teacher even showed us native plants that were used in medicine, today and in the past when it was all Native American land. It was interesting to learn the history of how plants got their names and what they were used for. There is even a native weed plant to Kansas that was used as hemp to make things and smoke with but it is so far removed from the medical marajuana that people use today that no one touches it anymore. It was fun to learn how people had used the plants there is one called goats ear that people used at toilet paper. It was a really soft and fuzzy plant and bigger than I thought it would be. With dogwood if you tore apart a leaf and it had little strands hanging you could tell it was dogwood because it was the only plant that did that. There is even a little tiny rose that is native called Arkansas rose. But we all recognize the sunflower better. There were many different kinds of sunflowers. It was a lot more that I thought we had.It would be fun to grow one if they all didn’t grow to be so tall. But some people enjoy eating the seeds so the teacher told us a recipe to cook them.

Written by A Robinson