On Monday (7/20) about 100 plants were taken out of their cone-tainers and harvested to collect data. Most of the plants ready were the Rudbeckia Hirta, or Black-Eyed Susan. Only some of the Andropogon Gerardii (Big Bluestem), Zizia Aurea (Gold Alexander), and Allium Cernuum (Nodding Onion) were ready to be harvested. After the 35 day growing period the seedlings need to be taken out of the cone-tainers. The Rudbeckia Hirta plants had developed extensive root systems even in this short time and proved to be the most difficult plants to clean because they held on to a lot of the dirt from the cone-tainer. The rest of the species had not grow as expansive of a root system, but were still attached to the dirt they had grown in. Dirt cannot stay on the plants because of the resulting error in mass readings. Therefore, the dirt had to be brushed off of the roots delicately with toothbrushes, or gently massaged off under trickling water with fingers. After cleaning, the vegetative height and root length for each plant were measured with a metric ruler in centimeters, for the Allium Cernuum the small onion mass that had started forming was given a separate measurement. Then, using a 
scissors, a leaf was snipped off of each plant – including the petiole. Each leaf sample was then weighed and scanned. After the scan, the leaf and the rest of the plant were put in a folded sheet of paper with stapled sides. After all the plants were in these paper envelopes they were put in the Herbarium dryer and will be there for 3 days. On Thursday we will take another look at these samples to take some more measurements.
