My dark red coat absorbed the sun’s rays all too well. I shuffled my wings uncomfortably, the feathers trapping in the heat. I was built for chilly, high-altitude air, not the sweltering Horseshoe Peninsula. But sometimes, life doesn’t turn out as expected.
Some ponies know what they’re going to do with their lives from a very young age. Most ponies, actually. But it doesn’t help when your cutie mark symbolizes your religion rather than your career. And breed stereotypes can make it more confusing. When I started in college, I was studying weather engineering. A pretty typical pegasus career. But I decided I didn’t like it. Tell me, how many pegasi have you met who were pursuing a career in plant biology?
Well now you can say you’ve met one.
One early-twenties crisis and dozens of rejected applications later, I found myself working at the Peninsular Biological Station, where we studied the endangered peninsula scrub habitat. It’s not that everypony at the station was an earth pony. Most of the board members were unicorns, and there were pegasi in the bird lab. But in the plant lab, yes, all my coworkers were earth ponies. And they seemed much better adjusted to the heat than me.
Maybe I should explain the peninsula scrub. The Horseshoe Peninsula gets a lot of rain. But the peninsula scrub habitat—shrinking due to land development—resides on slightly elevated, very sandy areas where the water drains out of the soil so quickly that for the plants, the area is practically a desert. So we get lots of cacti, saw palmettos, and other sharp things. Plants in the scrub are adapted to very quick fire return intervals, as little as three years in certain areas. So, most plants never had the chance to grow very tall. Instead, this whole area was dominated by pony-height scrub oaks that tangled together to make a seemingly impassable sea of gnarled, gray branches and shriveled, green leaves.
I make it sound like the scrub is a horrible place. It’s, well… inhospitable, and that’s what’s so special about it. The heat, the dry soil—usually acidic, by the way—the frequent fires, make it a unique ecosystem, inhabited by unique plants that are found nowhere else. And since there is so little of the peninsula scrub left, it is a haven for endangered plants. You had to know what you were looking for, but there was beauty in the scrub. Scraggly little mints with unique smells; tiny, jewel-like flowers on plants whose entire family I’d never heard of; cotton-ball lichens that only became squishy on a foggy morning. It was a plant biologist’s dream.
I was with three other ponies from the plant biology lab—Silver, Sugarcane, and Wysteria. We were setting up long tape measures through the scrub. Our job was to identify which plant species intersected the line and for what distance. That was the best way to learn which plant species were most dominant in the area. That would tell us more about the succession of the plant community after fires.
Running the tape measure—or transect, as we called it—through the scrub was the hardest part. Sometimes the oaks were so thick that it was just plain impossible to get through. I don’t know if you knew this, but ponies can’t walk through wood. So then we’d have to toss the transect through the branches and try to find another path around. The oaks caught on my feathers, and the saw palmettos scratched at my cannons. All the while I was sweating. This was hard work, and even in the winter it was hot! At least I hadn’t seen any cacti in this particular plot of land.
“You look red, Peace,” Sugarcane said. “Do you need to take a break?”
“Ha ha, very funny,” I said. Sugarcane had lived in the Peninsula all her life. I don’t think she had ever experienced a truly cold day—by my mountainous definition—which meant she really didn’t recognize when it was hot either.
“No, seriously, feel free to take a break whenever you need it,” Wysteria said. “We’re in no rush.” She was leading the crew for today. She and Silver were both research assistants, but this particular project was Wysteria’s responsibility.
“I’m fine,” I said. It was true. I had worked another job where 10-12 hour field days were the norm, and here we usually only did 5-6 hours in the field, followed by more work in the lab. I was even used to working in the heat, although it was a different kind of heat in the high-altitude desert where I was from. Conditions in the scrub were tough, with the thick, humid air and the impenetrable walls of scraggly, pokey oaks. I didn’t think I could work out here for twelve hours, but six was manageable.
We reached the end of the transect, and Wysteria pounded in the last pole to mark our location. “Oops, I’m one tag short,” Wysteria said. We labeled the poles with numbered tags so we could come back to the transect a year later and know which pole was which.
“I got it,” I said. I instinctively went to stretch my wings but immediately found them snagging on oaks. I looked around for a clearing. There was a small patch of bare sand about five meters away. Even five meters was a hike in this terrain, but I got there. I stretched my wings and took off. I fluttered over the tops of the shrubs towards the start of the transect, where we had left some of our equipment. I wasn’t able to pick up much speed. The transect was only forty meters long, after all. It felt so much longer on the ground. I landed carefully, not wanting to catch on more oaks.
I grabbed another tag and stuffed it in my bag. I flew off to the clearing nearest Wysteria and hiked the last five meters. By then, Sugarcane and Silver had gone off to set up the next transect. “Thanks, Peace,” Wysteria said as I hoofed her the tag. “Do you want to measure or record?”
“I’ll measure,” I said. “I still need to learn these oak species.”
“I’ll record, then,” Wysteria said.
I started naming the plant species on the transect. I had to ask Wysteria for advice on a few of them. Oaks are tricky, because they hybridize. But oaks weren’t the only thing that gave me trouble. I had only come to the peninsula six months before. I knew hundreds of mountain plants, but the last six months had been a crash course in peninsular species. I needed to get this all down because I would be taking Wysteria’s place as a research assistant soon. Another example of life turning out in unexpected ways. I had planned to go to grad school after this internship. But plans changed.
“Peace, watch out for that cactus!” Wysteria suddenly shouted. She didn’t shout much, so it startled me and I froze midstep. Then I saw it. Right under my outstretched forehoof was a prickly pear cactus. It was hidden under a palmetto frond, as they often were.
“Thanks,” I said, looking around nervously. Where there was one cactus, there were more. Indeed, I found another one to my right. But this one was in flower! “Oh, wow!” I said, enthralled. “Look at that flower!” I had seen pictures of Opuntia flowers before, but this was my first time seeing it in pony. It was gorgeous.
At the top of the cactus was a big, showy, yellow flower. It had dozens of big anthers in the middle, bristling with pollen. A bee—or maybe some sort of fly, actually—was buried in there, having a truly wonderful time. I noticed that the anthers closed in as the fly moved around, covering it in pollen. It had more pollen than any other flower I had seen in the scrub.
Wysteria had stepped next to me to admire the flower as well. She loved flowers. “Look at all that pollen,” I said. “Now I know how these things are so prolific.”
“Yes,” Wysteria said. She bent down and sniffed the flower. She sighed in satisfaction. After her, I smelled it as well. It had a sweet, almost fruity scent.
“Wow, that almost makes up for their horrific spines,” I said. “That’s a lovely flower. Maybe my favorite I’ve seen in the scrub.”
“I’m glad you like it,” Wysteria said. We turned back to the transect.
Work went on for a few hours. It only got hotter as we continued. We finished the site a little after noon. I was tired by the end, but it was a satisfying sort of tired. We had gotten a lot done. And I felt accomplished, too; by the end I felt pretty confident on the oaks. And I had a new favorite flower in this habitat.
“What are you up to this afternoon?” Silver asked me as we hiked back to the station.
“I’m going to keep writing my manuscript,” I said. “It’s time for me to finally start the introduction that I skipped earlier.” That was another nice thing about working at this biological station. Interns were given time to work on their own research projects. Not every intern went this far, but I wanted to get a publication in a scientific journal off of my data, which I had already analyzed.
“But a shower first, of course,” I added. I was drenched in sweat, and there could be chiggers out here, as well.
“Of course,” Silver said. “Good luck with your manuscript. I’ll be in the office this afternoon, so feel free to ask me if you want any advice.” Another perk to the plant lab in particular; everypony was kind, knowledgeable, and always willing to help.
“Thanks,” I said.
My job didn’t pay well, especially as an intern. Once I was promoted to research assistant—I had already signed the offer letter, so that wasn’t just wishful thinking—the pay would be a little better. But mostly I just really enjoyed my job. It was hard, but it was rewarding.
Author's Note
The cover photo is the prickly pear flower I was gushing about.
