Day 3: Moscow State University Botanical Garden and Pioneer Palace Botanical Garden

Today we got to experience the Moscow public transit system. It is a very efficient and high capacity system (it has to be; Moscow is a huge city!). Julia, who we have decided is like our wonderful adopted Russian aunt, guided us along as we navigated this unfamiliar territory. Here is a photo of art featuring famous historicaxl figures in one of the metro stations we were in:

We took the metro to Moscow State University where we toured parts of the University Botanical Garden, established in 1951, with Katarina, a researcher at the University. The Garden at the University covers approximately 30 hectares. The University was founded in 1755.

Moscow State University, from the rear

Brian with the only large Taxodium distichum surviving in Moscow. Taxodium is native to the southern coastal plains of the US, Brian's home. This one in the photo was one of many planted in this area, but all the rest quickly succumbed to Moscow's cold. It is not known why this one has survived. Perhaps it is due to genetics?

Igor educated us on the difference between the leaves of Nymphaea and Nuphar. Can you spot the differences in the photo above?

We met Tatiana, an expert in the Apiaceae family. 

After lunch we walked toward the Pioneers Palace to visit the small garden there. Along the way we visited a touristy overlook nearby to the University. Here you could see for miles!

At Pioneers Palace, we visited a very small educational garden, typically only for children at the Pioneers Palace. Don't let the size deceive you though; this garden packs lots of diversity and education into a small space! It was really interesting to see how they managed to cultivate so many things in such a small area. Another cool thing to note is that they have managed to cultivate a few things that you normally would not see anywhere near this climate zone, as if there is a really special little microclimate here. One example is Arucaria aurucana (monkey puzzle tree), a tropical tree, which was a few inches tall and was approximately four years old. Unfortunately the picture I took of it turned out quite blurry. There were also several Magnolia species that are typically only able to grow in more temperate zones. Here is an example of the high density of plants in the small space:

After this, we went to dinner at a local authentic Georgian restaurant, where two of Travis's friends who recently moved to Moscow joined us. Many of the foods at this restaurant are also common in Russia.

We will be heading to Apatity tomorrow. We are not sure how the internet connection will be there, as it is north of the Arctic Circle and not very populous. We will be there for approximately one week.

Day 2: Zvenigorod Research Station

Today we visited a local forest (Zvenigorod Research Station, just outside of Zvenigorod) and bog (Sima Lake) about 50 km outside of Moscow so that we could see the local natural flora. Julia's grandson, Boris, joined us (Igor, Julia, Travis, Brian, and I) on the excursion. Boris is about 13 years old and has an interest in botany. It was also a great opportunity for him to practice his English. Here are a bunch of pictures from our excursion:

Overlooking Moscow River, upstream of Moscow and nearby to Zvenigorod

Snacking on Rumex acetosa, a local edible native that is invasive in the US. It was a little sour and slightly lemony. These leaves are often collected by locals and made into soups. Mushrooms and wild berries are also often collected. We naturally had to sample some of the edible berries we found throughout the day as well :)

Melampyrum nemarosum, locally called Ivan and Mary (inspired by the dichotomy of the foliage color change from upper to lower).

Understory (no typo this time! refer to 1st day blog post) of pine forest, which also has lots of different types of ferns, including Athyrium felix-femina.

Walking along narrow boardwalk over the bog (photo by Brian).

Drosera rotundifolia, a small carnivorous plant. It has sticky glands covering it that insects get stuck in.

Swimming in Sima Lake, the exposed lake within the bog! (which might or might not be entirely legal... but we're scientists so it's okay)

After our visit to the forest and bog, we went to a local monastery called the Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery, located in the town of Zvenigorod. It was founded in the very early 1400s.

Main monastic building. Lots of images of Russian Orthodox saints and figures can be found inside. No photos inside out of respect.

Breads and pastries made by the monks. We purchased some of these. They were yummy!

After our visit to the monastery, we went to a local park for what could be called a Russian-style picnic BBQ, all prepared by Julia's wonderful family. Igor grilled shashliki (also called shashlyk), which is similar to a shish kabob, and some sausages. They were all quite delicious! Julia's two daughters prepared many local dishes to accompany our shashliki, including a potato and mushroom pie, roasted eggplant and onions, marinated mushrooms (yummy!), and much more. It was a great and fun end to an exciting day. We felt very welcome and absolutely loved Julia's family!

Day 1: Moscow Main Botanical Garden

First off, quick apology for any typos: I am posting from my phone rather than a computer due to login issues.

Sunday in brief (not worth a separate post):
We made it to Moscow without any problems. After we arrived and went through passport control, we met Igor, a dendrologist/de facto director of the arborteum of the Main Botanical Garden and who will be with us the entire time we are in Russia, and Julia, a head researcher who specializes in invasive plant research. They will be spending the next few days with us in and around Moscow, and Igor will be accompanying us to the Kola peninsula later this week. Since we got in fairly late Sunday night we just had dinner at the hotel restaurant and then turned in for the night.

Monday:
Today was a day at the Moscow Main Botanical Garden, founded in 1945. We started off by meeting Igor and Julia at the staff research building of the garden to plan out our day and the next couple of days in Moscow. From there we explored some of the arboretum portion of the botanical garden, including the birch and magnolia collections. Here is a photo of one of the oldest birches, planted in 1949:

After this we visited the Japanese Garden, which included seeing a very tall lantern dating to the 19th century and donated by Japan in a show of goodwill when the Japanese Garden was founded in the 1980s:

Interesting tidbit: Igor told us that the top portion of this lantern has been replaced 3 times due to visitors climbing the lantern and damaging the top.

Along with this we found purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria), a plant that some of our staff at MBG might be familiar with (looking at you, Brittany!). This plant is invasive in the US but is a beautiful native here in Russia, and seemingly quite attractive to some local bees!

After this we were joined by Irina and Viyana to tour the Central Asia collection. Irina is a researcher specializing in this area while Viyana works in the Dept. of Flora. Of note was their work in experimental crossing of various walnut fruit trees from that region, especially with Malus sieversii and Malus neidzwitziana, which both happen to be rare plants from Kyrgyzstan.

Next up we returned to the administrative building and had a brief tour of the herbarium with Ivan.

Then lunchtime! Anyone who knows me  probably knows that I love trying new foods, and lunch did not disappoint. One of the best dishes at lunch (in my own opinion) was a traditional pie, like a bread stuffed with a cabbage mixture.

After lunch headed toward the greenhouses. On our way we trekked through some understudy and saw a small display of undershirt flowers (edit: Travis found these typos but told me to leave them in!). When we emerged from the forested area of the Botanical Garden we were greeted with these giant greenhouses!

These large greenhouses in the above picture are destined to be public display featuring tropical and subtropical plants. However, they are still not ready for the public despite being over 20 years old. This is apparently due to permitting setbacks and plant growing times. As special guests of the garden though we got to see inside! The planting beds inside these structures are very well delineated by geographic region, and they represent their regions well. We were given a tour of these areas by Mikhail, Head of Tropical and Subtropical Plants. Brian was super impressed and was definitely in his element here (remember, he is from Naples). Brian and Mikhail already have plans to collaborate and share plants for the development of the display in these greenhouses. Along with the large and impressive greenhouses, we also got to tour the older and smaller public and research greenhouses. These included some pretty neat collections, such as ferns, rhododendrons, and various epiphytes.

After all the walking of the day (according to my FitBit, over 7 miles), we were ready for dinner. Julia and Igor accompanied us back to our hotel where we had dinner in the hotel restaurant again. We were also joined by the Russian head of the Botanical Exchange Program, who is also named Igor. Let's call him Igor S. We had a delightful dinner where we sampled true Russian vodka and learned about some Russian toasting traditions.

Tomorrow we will be heading to a natural area outside of Moscow to see some local plants in their native habitat. We are looking forward to it!

Preparing for the Trip

I'm Kayla. I'm the GIS Specialist at the Missouri Botanical Garden (MBG). In just a few short hours Travis, a horticulturist at MBG, and I will be boarding a plane for the first leg of our journey to Russia. We have a scheduled 19 hours of travel time ahead of us, going from St. Louis to Chicago to Helsinki to Moscow. We will be joined by Brian, the Director of Horticulture at Naples Botanical Garden. We aren't entirely sure what to expect ahead of us, but Travis and I are both incredibly excited for the trip. Here is a general outline of what we will be doing the next two weeks:

July 30: Depart St. Louis @ 4 pm CST

July 31: Arrival in Moscow @ 7:30 pm local Moscow time (11:30 am CST)

August 01 - 03: Visits to Main Botanical Garden of Russian Academy of Science (Arboretum, Japanese garden, Rose garden, Flora of USSR exposition, New and Old greenhouse, Herbarium) and Botanical Garden of Moscow State University

August 04: flight Moscow-Apatity

August 05: Visit to Polar-Alpine Botanical Garden

August 06: Tour of the Khibiny Mountains

August 07: Lapland Biosphere Reserve

August 08: Kandalaksha Nature Reserve

August 09-10: Trip to Tersky Coast of White Sea and Varzuga

August 11: flight Apatity-Moscow

August 12: Cultural program (Visit to historical sites and museums of Moscow)

August 13: Departure to US @ 10:45 am local Moscow time; Arrive in St. Louis @ 11 pm CST

This is my first time traveling internationally. I do not know a lot of Russian, but I've got a few words memorized, a list of useful phrases, and my trusty offline Google translator on my phone. I will be chronicling our adventure here in this blog... or at least try to; I don't know what kind of internet connection we will have north of the Arctic Circle, but I will certainly try to keep things updated!

Our journey soon begins...

The Northern Loop

Saturday, July 15, 2017

We are covering a lot of ground today. We are going to do the 70 mile Northern loop of the park. We started at Norris Geyser Basin because Sarah told us to look out for the Kalmia microphylla. We were able to find it in two places!  There were also some great thermal geysers in this Basin.

We moved on to The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and stopped for lunch in Canyon Village. We started the drive up to Tower Roosevelt when something pink caught my eye (go figure). It was Mimulus lewisii and it is adorable!  I do believe I need this!

We raised to an elevation of 8667+ feet and pulled off to see the change in flora. Many of the species were similar to what we have already at this elevation in Teton but we haven't talked about them yet so thought I would include them todya.  We saw Allium textile, Castilleja occidentalis, Sedum lanceolatum, and Geum triflorum.

Further down the road we noticed a valley and pulled over to try to see if any new species were there. We finally found Julia's Lupinus polyphyllus! She was so excited she was jumping up and down!   We also saw Bistorta bistortoides.

Two pull outs later we stopped by a stream and found Igor’s Betula glandulifera. With arms flailing and a large smile he ran back to grab his camera! It was a cute little shrubby thing that would be nice in our collection.

Of course we stopped at the petrified tree just past Tower Roosevelt where we ran into a rather large stand of Linaria dalmatica.  While we know it's invasive here, you can't help but appreciate its beauty (the reason it has been introduced in the first place).

Our last stop of the day was Mammoth Hot Springs. Some very interesting thermal features but other than some new Juniper species we mostly found exotics.  It was getting late and we still had to drive an hour and a half to get back to the house so we headed home to prepare for our hike with Heidi tomorrow.

Day 4: Geysers and Bogs

Friday, July 14, 2017

Upon entering the gate this morning we were informed that the trail we had planned to take today was closed. We only had a few hours before we needed to meet Sarah so we improvised.  Today we are going to focus our efforts on seeing the flora the Southwestern portion of the park and site seeing along the way.

The first section we came to was Fountain Flat Drive. A beautiful stream with a fumarol near the river. Here we found Eleocharis palustris a sedge that was eaten by some native peoples. We also saw a very cool pink thistle, Cirsium drummondii.

In the Fountain Paint Pots area I was fascinated by the ‘Bobby Sock’ trees. Named after the 1940’s white sock fashion they are very cool mummified in the thermal areas. Since Oleg has gotten quite sunburned while he has been here he has we have dubbed him Squatting Bobby socks for the day.  There were no new species in this area, but we did see probably 10 of the parks invasive species in this one location.

Of course we couldn't go by with stopping at Grand Prismatic Spring.

After two previously failed attempts on family vacation to see this area, I was a little bit excited that I could actually see it this time!

Sisyrinchium montanum

Next we decided to go see the Old Faithful geyser basin area. We were running out of time but did a quick tour of the Upper Geyser Basin before we had to leave to meet Sarah. One of my favorites was Sisyrinchium montanum.  Native peoples used the root to make into a tea to help with stomach troubles and expel intestinal worms. Isn't she a butte!?!? Gentiana species we couldn't get close enough to key exact.

Now on to our favorite part of the day! We met Sarah, the parks seasonal Biological Science Technician, who works on wetland restoration and delineation. She gifted us with a field guide to the rare plants within Yellowstone which was so invaluable to us. Thank you Sarah!!!!

Starting near Old Faithful we followed her to a wetland site that was full of so many interesting species!  Seriously, it was half of the rare species book!!!

I'm going to let the pictures speak for themselves but we saw:  Antennaera flagellaris, Carex cusickii, Erigonum umbellatum var. cladophorum, Drosera anglica, Juncus filiformis, Mulenbergia glomerata, Orobanche corymbosa var corymbosa, Mimulus moschatus, Equisetum laevigatum, and Spiranthes romanzoffiana just to name a few.

We went on the hunt for Botrychium simplex, called the key plant in Russia, but were unsuccessful. (Found out later it isn't in this area).  It is said that whenever you find this plant there will be treasure underneath! Alas, we will not be retiring as we have no treasure today.

This area was so large you could've spent all day here!  My favorite part was watching the species change as you moved through the wetland.

We also went to another site nearby were we saw Ross’s Bentgrass (Agrostis rossiae var. rossiae) growing in the fumaroles.  It was a bit past peak, but still very cool. We were soaked, muddy, mosquito bitten, and my allergies flared up, but we had an awesome time!!!

Day 3: Propagation Fields and Hidden Falls

Thursday, July 13, 2017

**We are having technical difficulties posting photos because of lack of Wi-fi, so we will upload those as soon as possible.

Today is our last day in Grand Teton National Park so we had to wake up early to pack the vehicle for our afternoon drive to Yellowstone. Six people, 6 luggage, 6 backpacks, 1 cooler, and some food later and our clown car was ready to go!!

Clown Car!

We left early today and we were able to stop for THE touristy photo since there was no line. Then we were off to meet Kelly McCloskey, Grand Teton’s Ecologist.  

Julia's research is on invasive species so she explained to us the reasons as to why they exist in the park. Over the years homesteading and dude ranches had created the need for animal grazing, this in turn brought and spread many species in the valley that have started to creep elsewhere. She also talked about a few restoration projects they are working on, a new sewer line being one of them. 

Next we went to their propagation fields to see the plots where they collect seed. This is a newer operation for them and although it's early stages, with a few challenges, is proving successful. Bromus inermis and Leucanthemum vulgare (Chrysanthemum leucanthemum*).  We also discovered that fire is not really an option for them as an invasive control because of the short window of opportunity. 

In the field plots we were able to see Helianthella sp., Poa secunda, Elymus trachycaulus, and Carex hoodii.  The Elymus will be able to be harvested this year. As an added bonus, we got to go to an old dude ranch near Snake River that is being restored and used for staff housing. 

Carex hoodii

We then got to visit their shade houses. Needless to say Derek was in hog heaven. Peaonia brownii (Brown's Peony) that was saved from a construction project. There were also some pines growing Pinus contorta and Pinus albicaulis. The white pine beetle is devastating a few sections in the park and they are working to restore those areas. 

For a structure that was only meant to be temporary it was pristine! Like us, they have a great group of volunteers who help them out. Many of the plants that are in the houses are awaiting their homes on restoration sites so that was neat to see. The most interesting of the species being the

After a wonderful tour and so much information (thank you again!) we said goodbye to Kelly and went to explore a bit more before our drive North. 

We only had a few hours left so we chose to hike to Hidden Falls. We thought we were hiking a quick, flat hike around Jenny Lake, but somehow took a turn and ended up on the trail to Hidden Falls. It's not that this is a strenuous hike, but after a couple of days of hiking already, the group was a bit tired. We were nervous we wouldn't see anything new, however, we hit the jackpot on some sun ferns and another shade one down the way. We also saw a new Rhododendron species today which made Igor very happy. 

Running out of time we thought it best to take the shuttle boat back to the parking area.  

Two hours later we reached Yellowstone. One of the first things we came across was a patch of Nufar luteum polysepala lilies, and Derek geeked out. The water was so clear you could see their bases! We also ran across Ledum glandulosum (Rhododendron columbianum*). 

Nufar luteum polysepala

Finally, I had to mention that in the back yard of where we are staying we also have Calchortus nuttalii growing in the backyard!

Calchortus nuttalii

*Some of our field guides are dated and we need to check the accepted names of some of these plants.