The Atomic Specimen

By Philip Evich

Jul 20 2019

Working with specimens from New Mexico for the Southern Rocky Mountain Digitization Project has turned out to be quite explosive. I encountered this specimen of Corispermum americanum which was collected “inside fence of Atomic Bomb Site, 1st explosion,” only four years after the nuclear bomb was tested for the first time in history. Interestingly enough, the found specimen calls to mind a mushroom cloud in the way its leaves and stems were pressed.

A Closer Look