Observations taken may 7 2022 at 2 pm. The day is cloudy and around 10 degrees celcius.
This visit offered the opportunity to begin to identify more plant species, though nothing was in full bloom. There are several wild rose bushes present and they seem widely dispersed and abundant in the town central area of the creek. I have not yet found any real reason for their abundance, but the plants are hardy and native to this area. Its suspected they are swamp rose, but this variety needs very wet soil so Im not convinced of this as this area is not too wet.
I found a small plant that may be Lesser Burdock, or wild rhubarb. This plant is transplanted by deer moving through, and since there is a high prevalence of deer in pincher creek I began to think, what plants are moved here because of them? The rhubarb was alone and so does not seem to be naturally widespread in the area. If this was indeed this plant I did only find one, which would lead to the idea that it was planted there in some way. The prevalence of rose bushes are attractive to many animals, birds and insects and so I began to think that its likely that barbed plants, or plants that move with animals would be highly prevalent around wild rose bushes. The rose bushes had very few rose hips left which could indicate that they were highly used as a food source in the winter.
I followed the river and observed 20 different rose plants that are in the beginning stages of bloom with many unidentified small plants in beginning growth phases in their surrounding areas.
I predict that I will find plants that transplant by barb at the base of wild rose bushes.
My hypothesis is that barb plants have co evolved with wild rose bushes to propagate themselves using the animals the rose bushes attract.
I would see a response variable of distributed barb plants growing at the base of rose plants and this would be a categorical measurement based on count. My measurements would be to identify plants around rose bushes looking for barbed plants as they bloom through the spring and summer.