On September 21st, Saturday, from 9 AM to 11 AM, AYLUS Great Neck Branch hosted another state park event except with a slight detour in botany. As members who participated in the Bethpage Greenhouse, volunteers were expected to extract seeds from various plants for the garden projects instead of weeding and planting. Some plants include the fragrant Viriniana, Purple Love Grass, and Echinacea Purpurea. Each of these plants were unique and diverse with very intricate seeding systems that make some very easy to manage while others incredibly painful to do so. The plants that we spent peeling the seeds are all placed into their own unique small bags to be used to spread around the park later on. The seeds themselves are a whole another ordeal as the smallest of them are barely visible to the naked eye while others are as big to be chucked into the bag on their own. Sometimes we have to gently massage the tough shell of a flower for it to release its seeds, other times we need to rapidly graze the flower to pop their seeds, and elsewhere we utilize tools like a baseball to crush the protective shell that contains the seeds. In general, a great experience and endeavor to visit the Bethpage greenhouse and a fantastic botany exercise all.
Reported By: Xingzhi Li
Volunteers: Zoe Xia, Tiffany Zhang, Qifeng Han, Qishan Han, Jerry Li, Xinyue Tan, Sophia Li, Cianyu Chien, Xingzhi Li, Felicia Liu, Yuya Liu (2 hours)
