The Desert Botanical Garden is about 30 minutes south of BASIS. It is well worth the drive. Here's a map for your convince.
It was founded in 1937 by Gertrude Webster, who donated its 180 acres. It has over 21,000 plants. About 7,000 of them are native, and the rest come from deserts across the world. My favorite tree there is the Boojum tree (Fourquieria coulumnaris), a name that comes from Lewis Caroll's poem The Hunting of the Snark. The trees, which are native to Mexico, great straight up into the air and can reach the height of about 70 feet. It is really hard to capture how stunning they are in a picture, but here's one I took today on my phone:
They are closely related to the ocotillo (Fouquieria splendens), which line the BASIS student parking lot (does anyone want me to do a post on BASIS's plants?).
It was founded in 1937 by Gertrude Webster, who donated its 180 acres. It has over 21,000 plants. About 7,000 of them are native, and the rest come from deserts across the world. My favorite tree there is the Boojum tree (Fourquieria coulumnaris), a name that comes from Lewis Caroll's poem The Hunting of the Snark. The trees, which are native to Mexico, great straight up into the air and can reach the height of about 70 feet. It is really hard to capture how stunning they are in a picture, but here's one I took today on my phone:
They are closely related to the ocotillo (Fouquieria splendens), which line the BASIS student parking lot (does anyone want me to do a post on BASIS's plants?).
Another highlight of the garden is this view of the peaks of Phoenix:
Probably their coolest "exhibit" is their collection of aloes and agaves. These plants, which are not related at all (aloes are from Africa and agaves are from North America), are examples of convergent evolution, the evolution of similar characteristics in separate populations of organisms. You can see how close they look:
I feel like that that is enough of advertising for the Desert Botanical Garden (you really should visit if you have the chance). So now that I've established that I work in a gorgeous place, let's talk about my job. I am a research assistant in the lab of Dr. Kevin Hultine. Every weekday, I go here:
I clock in, and I spend about five hours grinding dried leaves. Practically, this involves putting leaves into these containers:
Then, I put these into this ball mill with tiny metal balls, which grind up the leaves to into a homogeneous powder.
I put some powder into these tin capsules:
These tin capsules get undergo mass spectroscopy. From spectroscopy, we learn the ration of carbon-13 to carbon-12. Why would I go through so much trouble to get the ratio of carbon isotopes? You will have to read next week's post (or my prospectus) to find out .
This is some cool work you're doing, keep it up :) Why does it take so long to grind the leaves?
ReplyDeleteThe biggest thing is the sheer volume of leaves. When each leaf takes about 15 minutes from start to finish, the time really accumulates.
DeleteThis is really cool. Do you think there is a more efficient method for grinding these leaves?
ReplyDeleteHi, Manu. I certainly hope so. I think the biggest thing is practice. One professor with whom I worked at UC Davis mentioned that he did this 10,000 times during graduate school. With more practice, I think it will become quicker.
DeleteIt's really cool that you get to work in a place like this! (My favorite tree is the Baobab from West and South Africa!) Do you get to work with all kinds of plant leaves, considering that not all have identifiable "leaves"? For example, how do you grind the leaves of the aloes and agaves? What part of their branches do you grind?
ReplyDeleteThese are very excellent questions, Ziba. I mostly work with cottonwood leaves, but the procedure can be used for any plant and any part. I use leaves because the C-12/C-13 ratio in them is only affected by the water status of the couple of days before harvesting. If you use other parts, that might have more of a cumulative effect. If a plant does not have true leaves, then it will probably have more of a cumulative effect, which can be determined experimentally. (In the case of Aloe vera, you would also have to interpret the data slightly different because they use a different photosynthetic pathway than trees. This means, they discriminate carbon isotopes differently. Sorry about the long response, and thank you for the great questions.
DeleteHey Brian,
ReplyDeleteThe variety of plants at the botanical garden is so cool. If I have any free time, I might check it out. Is there any specific reason you use tin capsules to hold the powder ?
Thanks for the question, Nishant. I have not read any papers on this, so I have no experise. Here's my best guesss: The main reason is its standard. For mass spectroscopy, people just primarily use tin capsules. There are a couple of advantages. First, tin has a low specific heat, so it doesn't take that much energy to get the capsule to explode. Second, tin is cheap. Third, I would guess it has a very identifiable spectra (I'm not sure about this point).
Deletewow! so 7000 are native! thats amazing! Its wonderful to see you working at this place! Good work! :)
ReplyDeleteOh, the cliffhanger's a killer. The last time I was at the Botanical Garden was I think fourth grade for the Chihuly glass exhibition. Does your lab not have mass spectroscopy? Also, what sort of leaves are you grinding? Are you taking these leaves from the plants in the Botanical Garden exhibits?
ReplyDeleteHi, Eric. I'm working with Fremont cottonwoods from common gardens across the state. The different climates of the gardens is meant to simulate climate change because some are hotter and drier than others. We moved trees from across the state to different common gardens to see which are best suited for each climate.
DeleteWow that boojum tree looks pretty awesome. I think I've seen a few of them before, but didn't know the name until now.
ReplyDeleteThat boojum tree looks really cool. I can't wait to see what will happen next after you collect the mass spectroscopy data. Why do you put the powder in tin capsules?
ReplyDeleteHi, Sakeeth. Using the containers allows us to put a discrete and known amount of dried leaf powder in the spectroscopy machine.
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