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Green thumb

The next time university police officers finds a "green, leafy substance" lurking in a residence hall, maybe they should make a trip to see Susan Foose.

Is she a criminal mastermind? A drug rehabilitation expert? No, she works at UA's Herbarium, a museum containing 350,000 dried plant and herb specimens.

Foose, an ecology and evolutionary biology junior, began working at the Herbarium a year ago when she saw an announcement on the College of Agriculture listserv.

"I preserve plants, mount them on acid-free paper, and then file them according to the biogeny system," Foose said of her on-the-job responsibilities.

For those who do not know the term, biogeny is the classification system used for plants.

"It was hard to learn all the Latin," Foose said. "But I have a book to help me, and the knowledge is useful in other biology classes."

One of the negative aspects of her job is that on any given day, Foose finds herself "up to my neck in alcohol," which is not a result of partying the previous night. Rather, it is part of preserving individual agave flower plants.

Despite the unusual and unsavory working conditions, Foose loves her job because of the flexible hours and emphasis on research.

Located in the basement of the Shantz Building, the Herbarium is open to the public and serves a plethora of uses. Students in the College of Agriculture use it to research plants and homeowners can identify the plants growing in their backyards as either harmless vegetation or dangerous weeds. Additionally, poison control workers bring in specimens to determine if they are toxic and law enforcement officials can determine whether substances they find contain illegal drugs.

The Herbarium opened in 1891 with 700 specimens, years before the university offered classes. The University of Arizona's first botanist, James W. Tourney collected samples by himself. Now the collection has expanded to include 350,000 plants, herbs, flowers, seeds and cones, mostly from the arid Southwest. That area includes southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Baja California, Sonora and Chihuahua, Mexico.

Foose enjoys working with all the specimens, but has yet to decide what she wants to do with the skills she has learned.

"Right now I am interested in ethnobiology, which is medical research that looks for plants that can be made into drugs."

Maybe she will run into the UAPD again.