Ed Clark Museum of Missouri Geology

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My daughter and it did a day trip to Rolla MO to see the Ed Clark Museum of Missouri Geology last week. The forecast was for rain but it paused just as I got to my daughter’s so I took some pictures of the buds on the yuccas near her driveway.

There was another pause when we got to Rolla and stopped for lunch. It was beginning to sprinkle as we walked into the Missouri Department of Natural Resources that houses the museum. We discovered that they keep the front door locked – the receptionist must come out to let people in. We were the only visitors! The museum is not large, but the contents is almost all from Missouri and the labels are good. As usual – I took pictures.

Some of my favorites were things that I recognized: blue chert, galena, crinoid fossils, imprints of ferns, trilobites. stomatolightes

There was a glacial erratic from a banded iron formation found near Moberly, Missouri…hadn’t expected to see something like that.

I thought there would be a store associated with the museum…didn’t see any indication that it existed. They did have copies of the most recent Missouri Resources publication. It appears that the previous issues are available online, but the most recent one is part of a new blog feature (Missouri Resources Online) that they are working on; it wasn’t visible yet. I had been thinking of buying some Missouri geology maps to hang on my basement wall and I’m not sure where they can be purchased since the store was not there. Maybe printed maps are too much a ‘thing of the past.’

It rained for almost the whole drive home (almost 2 hours). We didn’t have any accidents on our side although we did see a lot of emergency vehicles on a side road we could see from Interstate. My daughter looked since I was driving. Evidently there was water covering a lot of the side road (and she said it looked deep). A little further along there was an accident on the opposite side of the Interstate that closed one of the two lanes on that side. I was glad when we made it back to Springfield.

Shoenberg Arid House at Missouri Botanical Garden

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After enjoying the orchid show, we headed to the Shoenburg Arid House at Missouri Botanical Garden. It was a short walk, but we realized that the breeze made if feel even colder than the temperature. It felt good to get into a warm building again. The air was surprisingly moist – maybe because the plants had been recently sprinkled.

There were cactus and aloes and yuccas…almost every plant had sharp points some place! A few of the cactus were blooming. It is not a large building so the plantings are relatively dense – closer together than they would be in their natural environment.

It was my first time to visit this conservatory since it opened in 2024 after a renovation…transitioning from temperate to arid plants. I liked that it is multi-level (a long ramp or stairs) and the central court. It is a get place to showcase arid plants.