Twelve hours from now I'll be on a plane from Cape Town to Johannesburg. About 37 hours from now I'll be landing at Bradley. It's hard to believe that this trip is coming to an end. Even though I know I've been away for nearly 4 weeks,1 we've been working so hard and getting so much done that it seems like just yesterday I arrived. So far the database for this part of the project has data from 28 species of Protea at 29 sites and 55 species of Pelargonium at 47 sites -- and there are at least 3 species of Protea and another 3 species of Pelargonium that haven't even been entered yet. And there's the collections that will happen later this week and next week in the Cederberg. By the time all is said and done, we'll have data from nearly 40 species of Protea and 70 species of Pelargonium. It's been a very successful trip.
I've even had time to run some preliminary analyses of the data, and the results look pretty interesting. We find relationships between weather variables and stomatal conductance in both genera, but they're generally stronger in Pelargonium, and we find strong relationships between leaf thickness and specific leaf area. Neither result is terribly surprising, but the comparisons between the genera (and probably among clades within each genus) promise to be very revealing. Stay tuned.
And if you're reading this on the main page of Uncommon Ground, click through to the next page to see another nice Protea flower.
I've even had time to run some preliminary analyses of the data, and the results look pretty interesting. We find relationships between weather variables and stomatal conductance in both genera, but they're generally stronger in Pelargonium, and we find strong relationships between leaf thickness and specific leaf area. Neither result is terribly surprising, but the comparisons between the genera (and probably among clades within each genus) promise to be very revealing. Stay tuned.
And if you're reading this on the main page of Uncommon Ground, click through to the next page to see another nice Protea flower.
Sorry. No image yet. The Internet connection here is slow, so I'll have to upload my image of Protea compacta from Kleinmond when I get home.
126 days now. I left Hartford on the 21st of July. It will be 27 days after I left by the time I return.
126 days now. I left Hartford on the 21st of July. It will be 27 days after I left by the time I return.
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