Flowers and Collections – March 26
Nupoor C -
Hello everyone! Now that spring has officially spring, I’ve begun my last round of flora collections! There has been an abundance of brittlebush flowers, fairy duster flowers, desert marigolds, ocotillo flowers, Arizona lupin, and beloperone flowers to add to my growing stock of samples. Though I haven’t collected much of the ocotillo or Arizona lupin, I will later this week when I make a trip out to the Sonoran Conservancy of Fountain Hills after notifying some officials of my plans.
While collecting some beloperone flowers however, I realized that I hadn’t explained why I dry the samples and keep them in jars when it would be much more economical to use plastic baggies and much faster to use them immediately. In short, I want to make sure that they are preserved for me to use a week later, if I end up doing my trials then or need to do an additional trial later down the line. Drying the flora tends to prevent mold from growing, though keeping them in plastic baggies tends to cause mold no matter what, since the seal can be finicky. I use some solid plastic jars that don’t allow for much air and moisture to seep in, so I can keep my pigments fresh the longest.
To dry, I keep the flora in cool, dry environments (which usually means on my bookshelf) though on particularly hot days, I have moved them outside to expedite the drying process. Usually, they’re fully dried after about a week (though some plants need up to 10 days) after I’ve set them out, at which point I crush them to save space in the jars. I try to use my samples as I finish preparing them to cut down on the number trials I have to do at once.
I’m getting excitingly close to completing all my tests, and hopefully will be done by the first week of April to share my results with all of you!
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