I have been quite busy upon returning from the field trip. Mostly I have been processing seeds and organizing my collection records. I made several trips to the Hacettepe and Ankara Universities to meet with faculty, examine herbarium specimens and talk Camelina.
While looking at specimens deposited in the Ankara University herbarium, I made an interesting discovery, Camelina stiefelhagenii! Last year I examined the type specimen of this species at the Berlin Herbarium, and this year I had the chance to examine the only other collections known of this rare species. Interestingly, while the species was first described from a garbage dump in Dresen, Germany, these collections were made in Turkey in 1956, nearly 18 years later. There isn't any evidence that it has been collected since 1956, and I fear the possibility of Camelina stiefelhagenii taking the same path as Camelina anomala. Check out last year's field blog to learn more about these two interesting Camelina species.
Some amazing artwork in the middle of an Ankara mall, featuring the many different names of God written in Arabic scripts. It appears this art is on display in celebration of Ramazan.
My friends and family know that I have a weak spot... Sonoran hotdogs. While I haven't found any Sonoran dogs in Turkey, I did find something that tickled my fancy. This is an extremely loaded baked potato hot dog... thing. It's a hotdog, but with a baked potato instead of a bun. Filled with cheese, olives, mushrooms, corn, shredded meat, mayo and ketchup; this monster filled me up good!