Thank you to all of the generous donors who supported Expedition Has through the Emory Momentum platform! Our team was successful in collecting understudied medicinal plants for scientific analysis and documenting traditional food and health practices to guide us in our future laboratory research. Your donations made it possible for a total of five graduate students from the University of Prishtina, Kosovo, to join us on the expedition, where they gained training in field research methodologies with myself, and three other professors. We will be writing up our findings for publication later in the year and I look forward to sharing it with you all!

-Cassandra Quave

Our expedition in the Balkans is underway!

The trip started above the tree line in the hills and mountains where we collected a lovely population of Salvia verticillata for study in the lab. After preparing these herbarium specimens, we chopped up bulk samples for drying.

As we continue our expedition, we’ve come across an endemic lily species, plus Lule Shtog (elderflowers in Albanian), and elderberry trees (Sambucus nigra) in the mountains; and medicinal plants for sale in the local market (“Pazaar”) like chamomile, bilberry, St. John’s wort, yarrow, and so much more!

Our Momentum crowdfunding campaign that helps us along the way on this trip runs through the end of this month. Thank you to those who have already supported our important expedition, and I ask that you share my campaign page via Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, or share my direct link (http://momentum.emory.edu/Quave) with friends, family, colleagues who may have an interest in our research.

You can also follow along with the expedition via my social media @QuaveEthnobot on both Twitter and Instagram.

Thank you!
Cassandra Quave