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The Mary McKee Felton Herbarium Internship Fund
at the University of North Carolina Herbarium
Hannah Meeler,
2012 Felton Intern in the Herbarium
I am a rising senior at UNC-Chapel Hill and I am studying
environmental science and biology. I am focusing on ecology & plant
biology, as I aspire to be a botanist! Working in the herbarium has been an
amazing experience so far and I am looking forward to the rest of the summer.
I am doing so many different things each day: databasing plant specimens,
filing them, and making digital photographs of some of them.
Day-to-day herbarium tasks are proving to be an
excellent way to familiarize myself with hundreds of different plant species
from all over the world. I am learning to look at a genus and immediately
know which family it belongs to (and where that family is located in the
herbarium!), and to appreciate the history of the name changes of plants.
There are also many botanists around to ask for advice and learn from (about
both plants and life)!
I am currently working to create a webpage for the
herbarium to showcase the violets of North Carolina, since they are so
lovely, but so tricky to identify. I
am also getting a chance to be outdoors looking at live plants. I am collaborating with Dr. Robert Peet in
the UNC-CH Biology Department to document the flora of Redlair Farm &
Forest. The Plant Conservation
Program, Catawba Lands Conservancy, and private landowners are working to
preserve this significant natural area in Gaston County, NC. In mid-July will participate in the
Carolina Vegetation Survey PULSE 2012B event to document the flora of
north-central Piedmont South Carolina.
I have gotten a scholarship to attend the 2012 Cullowhee Native Plant Conference
at Western Carolina University.
I will continue to fight the good fight for
getting the plants taken care of and filed for the rest of the summer, while
learning a lot along the way. I am so thankful to have the opportunity to
this during the summer and to be working around such great people every day.
I plan to continue volunteering in the herbarium throughout my senior year.
Friends, classmates and colleagues of Mary
McKee Felton (1917 – 2001) are honoring her and her years of service to the
herbarium and the university community by establishing an endowment account
to fund an internship in the herbarium. This internship supports employment
of a student for a semester in the UNC Herbarium. Students may apply or be
nominated by faculty and selections will be made by the Herbarium
administration. To make a contribution or to obtain more information,
please contact Charlotte Jones-Roe, Assistant Director for Development at
the North Carolina Botanical Garden at 919-962-9458 or by email at jonesroe@email.unc.edu.
If you are interested in applying for the Mary McKee Felton Herbarium
Internship, please contact Alan S. Weakley, Herbarium Curator, at (919)
962-0578 or by email at weakley@unc.edu
. Any internship candidate should demonstrate keen interest in the flora of
the southeastern United States, have good typing skills, and have an
interest in learning how to use and curate herbarium specimens.
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Past Mary McKee Felton Interns:
(to
see the results of the project, click on the link within the project name)
2003: Lisa Giencke
Project: To database and create distribution maps
of the ferns and fern allies of the Southeastern United States
2006:
Marylou Kidd
Project: Annotate, database, and
correctly re-file all specimens of Andropogon
worldwide according to the most current nomenclature and taxonomic concepts.
2010: Kristie
Wendelberger
Project: We’ve all heard the adage
that “a picture is worth a thousand words.”
Felton Intern Kristie Wendelberger is taking that adage another step,
and replacing strings of descriptive text with simple, attractive,
informative maps. She is creating
single species occurrence maps to be inserted into the Flora of the Southern & Mid-Atlantic States by Herbarium Curator
Dr. Alan Weakley. She is creating a
map for each of the 7,000 species in the Flora. The information depicted in these maps will
quickly provide the reader important details about the species’ presence,
abundance, and states as a native or exotic plant.
  
Curriculum North Carolina UNC
In Ecology Botanical Garden Biology Department
University
of North Carolina Herbarium
CB# 3280, Coker Hall
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3280
phone: (919) 962-6931
fax: (919) 962-6930
email: mccormickATSIGNunc.edu
Last Updated: 9 July 2012
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