Jordan Edlich volunteered on the Native Plant Trail as a local high schooler. Now a graduate student at George Mason University, pursuing a master’s degree in Environmental Science Policy, Jordan is back, completing a summer internship taking inventory of Blandy’s expansive 34-acre Native Plant Trail Meadow.

This is the first official inventory of the Native Plant Trail Meadow that has been conducted since the meadow was planted over 35 years ago according to Jack Monsted, Assistant Curator at Blandy. “It is important for us to document how the meadow has progressed, which plants are dominant in the different areas, and also to determine the legacy of the original planting plans,” Jack said.

Using old maps, and some original planting documents, a GPS device, and a phone with a plant identifier app, Jordan dives into each identified section of the meadow, documenting populations and locations of plant species, filling a college-rule style notebook with entries. Despite the summer heat, walking through the thickly populated meadow with some plants reaching shoulder height, encountering nests of birds, newborn fawns, as well as snakes, ticks and insects, Jordan approaches this seemingly daunting task with enthusiasm, and curiosity.

In addition to documentation, there is also discovery. Just this week, Jordan identified, a Green Fringed Orchid (Platanthera lacera) and the Green Milkweed (Asclepias viridiflora), native plants not originally planted at Blandy. “These plants have not or have rarely been seen at Blandy before, and now we have exact map locations of where they are blooming in the meadow,” Jordan said.