Muchas plantas...

At the risk of boring the people that aren't interested in the actual vegetation that we're studying (hello, family and friends), I'll keep this one short. Yesterday morning we spent time with Maria Bemhaja and Martin Juarena from INIA. They do similar vegetation research in grasslands and forests, and INIA is sort of like Uruguay's version of the Forest Service. They a government funded research organization.

In about two hours or so, we collected tons of plants and wrote down as much as we could while deciphering Maria's and Martin's accents, as well as having fun translating plant parts from Spanish to English. We left very overwhelmed, but it was a great introduction to the plants of Uruguay. Grasses still scare the beejesus about of me, so they'll be fun to get comfortable with. So far, it actually isn't too intimidating, but since we haven't actually started sampling vegetation yet, I'll reserve my final judgement for awhile.

For those of you plant geeks out there (hi, Lana!) this is Baccharis trimera which is very common here across the landscape. The cattle don't seem to like it too much, so even when everything else is heavily grazed, clumps of Baccharis stick out.

The plants that are more edible and preferred by the cattle are completely adapted to their environment. Inside the INIA exclosures (where cattle are prevented from entering), some small plants are several inches tall. Outside the exclosures, where cattle are feeding, these same species of plant are virtually a ground cover, not getting more than 1 inch of the ground. It's pretty interesting to see it in person.

There are other plants here that are unlike anything I have seen. They certainly are more tropical than the species I am used to in the Pacific Northwest, and since my experience is in temperate forests, this is literally a whole new world for me.