LEWISIAS

[David Nicholson]

There you are Cohan, a ready made business opportunity. You could collect seed and write travelogues as well. All of these could be carried out in the second part of your week

[Kristl Walek]

There you are Cohan, a ready made business opportunity. You could collect seed and write travelogues as well. All of these could be carried out in the second part of your week

yes, cohan---BUT I know for sure you could not undertake the mandate on your bicycle!!!!!

it was always my dream to do the Alberta natives; but alas....so many species, so little time.

and, i should mention that one of our forumnist, Linda Foulis in the Red River Valley of Alberta has been encouraged (nagged?) by me to expand her (already existing) seed business into native species. she has, in fact, taken the first plunge this year---and will be listing some wild collected AB natives soon, with plans to expand the listings in the future. i am already planning a trip to visit her next summer for some mutually beneficial botanizing/seed collecting.

i know I will not be able to leave Canada, when the times comes to become a gypsy, without at least one botanizing trip to Newfoundland and one last trip to the province where my heart has always been ---Alberta.

[Lesley Cox]

Thanks so much for all that information. I am becoming known on the Forum as "The lazy Googler."

[Maggi Young]

Great news about Linda's "conversion" 

I am sure there is a continuing market for north american native plant seeds .

[cohan]

There you are Cohan, a ready made business opportunity. You could collect seed and write travelogues as well. All of these could be carried out in the second part of your week

yes, cohan---BUT I know for sure you could not undertake the mandate on your bicycle!!!!!

it was always my dream to do the Alberta natives; but alas....so many species, so little time.

and, i should mention that one of our forumnist, Linda Foulis in the Red River Valley of Alberta has been encouraged (nagged?) by me to expand her (already existing) seed business into native species. she has, in fact, taken the first plunge this year---and will be listing some wild collected AB natives soon, with plans to expand the listings in the future. i am already planning a trip to visit her next summer for some mutually beneficial botanizing/seed collecting.

i know I will not be able to leave Canada, when the times comes to become a gypsy, without at least one botanizing trip to Newfoundland and one last trip to the province where my heart has always been ---Alberta.

interesting thought, david, but as kristl points out, the most exciting species tend to be rather far flung, so i'd need to find faster transport  i was theoretically supposed to start driving when we moved out here, but i find a lifetime of paranoia (in the background--in years of city living, i had no reason to even think about driving) is not so easily overcome, and i need some more calming approach than the typical get in the car on a road (which all seem fearfully narrow targets to me) and start driving!
my housemate is doing all the driving so far, which works ok for work and shopping, but he will not stop by roadsides for seedcollecting (much less leave pavement any more than already required by our gravel road residence) apart from occasionally in the mountains..
which brings us to the next problem--most of the alpine areas are in national parks, and if there is a way to get permits for collecting there, i have not been able to find it;  kristl, do you know anyone who has done so and how?some searching might find more high areas (lots of low-medium areas)  that are in provincial forest land, which is much less restricted.. some of the non-national park alpine areas are even farther away from me--easily overnight trips required...

i am interested in seed collecting for sure, definitely a steep learning curve, as kristl mentioned--not just on the plants, that's almost the easy part, and definitely the fun part, even if frustrating when your lesson is learned by missing a species for another year  --but seemingly obvious things like cleaning seed! i need to look into this more, there must be a whole set of equipment (improvised or otherwise) that i don't have! then issues of storage, quality testing, etc...

what seed business does linda have?? either i missed that totally, or have seen it and didn't connect it to linda from here... she is actually in the Red Deer River Valley, as i know you know, actually in the city of red deer last i knew, unless she moved? thats about a 45 minute drive from here, but the interesting part of the Red Deer River Valley begins considerably farther away--probably at least another 45 minutes drive from the city of Red Deer, maybe more..

there are some vendors selling plants/seeds of prairie and to a lesser extent, dryland plants (think mostly perennial border flowers, rather than rock gardens) from alberta, but miniatures from dryland areas and alpines are mostly unrepresented..

david, don't forget alplains for american west seeds...

[Lori S.]

And Rocky Mountain Rare Plants:
http://www.rmrp.com/

Edit:  Sadly, RMRP is no longer in business

[cohan]

And Rocky Mountain Rare Plants:
http://www.rmrp.com/

have you ordered from them, lori? i've looked at the website, but not ordered so far..

[Lori S.]

No, I haven't yet either.

[David Nicholson]

RMRP have only two Lewisia species listed-nevadensis and rediviva.

[Kristl Walek]

Cohan,
Getting to the plants is a problem everywhere one collects seed, even if the reasons for it are different in each place and for each person. My collecting of alpines in Alberta was not done in parks---and it was A LOT less onerous to get to the plants than here in Nova Scotia where most land is in private ownership. I remember one trip, starting in Edmonton and driving into the Rockies, passing miles and miles of Dryas drummondii lining the road. Soon it was rocky areas with Silene acaulis, Saxifrages etc. all within a few steps of the car. In those days I was only armed with Budd's Flora of the Canadian Prairie Provinces---but there is also Moss's Flora Of Alberta and the more recent Rare Vascular Plants of Alberta.

[cohan]

Cohan,
Getting to the plants is a problem everywhere one collects seed, even if the reasons for it are different in each place and for each person. My collecting of alpines in Alberta was not done in parks---and it was A LOT less onerous to get to the plants than here in Nova Scotia where most land is in private ownership. I remember one trip, starting in Edmonton and driving into the Rockies, passing miles and miles of Dryas drummondii lining the road. Soon it was rocky areas with Silene acaulis, Saxifrages etc. all within a few steps of the car. In those days I was only armed with Budd's Flora of the Canadian Prairie Provinces---but there is also Moss's Flora Of Alberta and the more recent Rare Vascular Plants of Alberta.

i definitely need to get the moss and packer book; i've having some luck with efloras, but the harder part with that is knowing which species to look at in the first place, since their distribution maps only say if its in the province..

going west from here, the dryas also start before the park boundaries, but i have never seen the silene; i think it must exist though, just up higher than where there is easy access to-i've looked at some online descriptions of some trails that sound like they probably get into the alpine area prior to the parks, though some of those are designated wilderness areas, so still need to check into allowability of collecting; possibly going from edmonton, already farther north, things like the silene are coming down farther..
some of the trail information i saw was from a book, so that's another i need to get 

in my immediate area, everything is private property, so i normally am only collecting on roadsides, and on my relatives' farm; i occasionally step across a wire fence by a few metres, or go a few metres onto unfenced land, but no farther than that; this policy is ok for mostly plants of open areas or forest edge, but i only get into real forest on the family's land..

what i would really love to see--not for this thread where we have already gone way offtopic-sorry! is your various seed cleaning apparatus and methods

[Kristl Walek]

cohan,
instead of continuing to go astray in this Lewisia thread---i will start one in
"My Bit Of Heaven"

[cohan]

cohan,
instead of continuing to go astray in this Lewisia thread---i will start one in
"My Bit Of Heaven"

tks, kristl

[astragalus]

And Rocky Mountain Rare Plants:
http://www.rmrp.com/

have you ordered from them, lori? i've looked at the website, but not ordered so far..

I order seed from them all the time (Rocky Mountain Rare Plants), and it is always excellent.  I always get excellent germination from their seed.

[cohan]

good to know, anne, thanks