Greenhouse days with the Island Torrey Pine

I never thought I would be working with such a rare endemic species as an undergraduate. There is a great challenge in understanding germination conditions of endemic native flora when so little life history has been studied. On a daily basis I enter the CSU Channel Islands greenhouse to check on seed viability under different irrigation and leaf litter treatments. Each tray contains 50 seeds and all are marked with toothpicks for location. Once germinated, I mark them with tape including their day of radical emergence (>3mm) and seed number. So far my preliminary findings suggest that leaf litter is very important for germination (rate and success).