Mountains

Daegu to Yeongcheon

This morning we drove from Daegu to Yeongcheon, here we went up Bohyun mountain in search of seeds and in particularly Abies koreana, a fir native to the mountains of South Korea. The mountains are easily accessible by roads here and we were able to park in an observatory car park. Undeterred by the warning signs about venomous snakes we set off into the hills. In recent times, hiking has become a very popular pastime in Korea, and with this has come very well maintained paths and walk ways which made life a lot easier.

Keum Seon and Michiel collecting Rhamus davurica

Russell at the summit of Bohyun mountain

Unfortunately very few of the trees we came across had seed but we did find some collectable Abies koreana seed so all was not wasted. We also took a healthy collection of Rhamnus davurica, which although is not endemic to Korea and is native to the south Asian region, was still worth collecting.

From there we travelled to Cheongsong-gun to our hotel for the evening.

Yeongcheon to Cheongsong-gun

We visited a local restaurant for dinner and I have found from that how much I appreciate finding Oreo biscuits in a local supermarket. After dinner we cleaned and sorted the collected seeds into trays so they can begin to dry out and began pressing the herbarium specimens.

Abies koreana male and female herbarium specimens

Collected seeds drying