By Laura Briscoe, Wayne D. Longbottom

Mar 21 2019

"I started collecting plants in April of 1989 as a requirement for a Plant Taxonomy class at Anne Arundel Community College in Maryland, taught at that time by Professor Dave Williams. Prof. Williams asked me what I hoped to get out of the class. I said “I want to be able to tell a Northern Red Oak from a Southern Red Oak” his answer was “I think I can help you with that” and the adventure began. Recognizing my extraordinary interest in plants and plant collecting, Prof. Williams arranged independent study for me in 'Herbarium Techniques'. I was hooked. At the end of the first year I had collected over 400 specimens.
 
It seemed I had what it takes; the collector’s bug and a love of the outdoors. Once your eyes have been opened to the beauty, majesty, and excitement of wild plants, you can never close them again!
 
Eventually I discovered the wonderful genus Carex and the enormous plant group; the sedges. This led me to meet Dr. Rob Naczi of the New York Botanical Garden, who enlisted me to help him with the determination and categorization of sedges of the Southeast United States. This was an especial pleasure for me as I was able to team up with my old professor, Dave Williams, now retired in Florida. Together, with Dave and others, I have spent many happy hours in the field.
 
I was never able to get an advanced degree in botany. Life, like it or not, happens. But, in some ways, I'm glad I didn't. I know PhD botanists who don't spend nearly as much time in the field as I do. They end up doing lots of paperwork. Of course, paperwork is botany, too. But I prefer my botany outside, knee deep in the salt marsh, mosquitoes biting, breezes rustling in the Phragmites and Spartina, with marsh wrens, red-winged blackbirds and seaside sparrows singing their songs of challenge and love."

- Wayne Longbottom