Yesterday I was invited to guide a group of Botanist from the Shaw Nature Reserve in Eureka, MO to some glades in the Mark Twain NF near here so they could collect seeds for a seed bank where they'll freeze them for use in case of emergencies.

If you thought computers geeks were nerdy you ain't seen nothing. The seven of them, five women and two men, walked as slow as turtles over the glades and they knew then names of every plant out there, except one, which of course caused a great deal of excitement.

Try as I might, I couldn't remember the names of those plants 10 seconds after they told them to me (Except "Ladies Trusses" which are a cute little orchid .

It was incredibly cool to tag along and very enlightening to see what excited them. I even got to teach them one thing. There was a centipede (or millipede) that locals here call "Amaretto Bugs" curled up next to the unidentified plant they were looking at and one of them pointed it out. I told them what we call them and that if you pick one up and smell it they smell just like "Amaretto". One of them looked at me like I was pulling their leg, but they picked it up and sniffed it and confirmed what I had said. They passed that little bug all around and all were pretty much amazed. They said they don't have them where they work, and had never heard of them before.

Before they left one came over with a leaf that had a tiny caterpillar on it she called a "Rose Slug Caterpillar". It was a cute little thing and I had never seen one of them before.