All About Classifications

Yesterday, we were told that we should classify our specimens. I'm talking the whole nine yards: class, order, family, genus, and if possible, species. For the last assignment, I got the genus and species, but I have to try to step my game up. 
We got our first taste of this drawing from life thing. Towards the beginning, mosquitoes had an absolute feast on my left hand. It made me think that maybe I should invest in bug-spray. After finding a nice bench in the arboretum, this tree is what caught my eye.

This right here is called a Blolly. It's scientific name is Guapira discolor. To go into more depth, in order from class, subclass, order, and family respectively, it is a Magnoliopsida, Caryophyllidae, Caryophyllales, and Nyctaginaceae.

The really cool thing about the arboretum at the Honors College is that it is split into specific habitats. The blolly is found in the Tropical Hardwood Hammock Habitat, and is in fact native to Florida. It needs moist soil to thrive and live its best life. It also must have sun, or at least partial sun, which makes it a great Floridian plant. It also provides food to other organisms via producing red berries that birds eat as well as providing covering. From what I could tell, this specific tree didn't seem to have any berries. 

I hope you're impressed by all that information, because after that, I failed to actually identify the other plants I drew. I was inspired to look down and draw what I saw. I wanted to explain the surroundings and the colors, and before I knew it, time was up. Don't get me wrong, the idea of figuring out what these plants were in my mind's eye, but not at the forefront. It happens. Let me show you what I mean.

I must say that when we were going around and looking at each other's work, someone brought up the fact that they used the app iNaturalist to identify their plant. I didn't think of doing that...I'll go back and do that when I can, but until then, I bid you all adieu.
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