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She was collecting seeds from Ammophila breviligulata - the grasses that helped stabilize the dunes on the beaches at Far Rockaway, Queens. Liljengren was on a routine mission last October, just a few days before Hurricane Sandy. Just Before Sandy, A Serendipitous Seed Hunt In time, the loss of species will snowball. That's why native flora is so important, Liljengren says: If these plants disappear, then so will the insects. The insects that will come and pollinate these irises love them." " one of the only spots, I believe, in the five boroughs where this species naturally still exists. "Well, what a treat," she says, peering at the blooms of the thin-leafed iris, iris prismatica. But when I walk around I am drawn to every small flowering thing, from the ground all the way up into the trees." "When people walk around, they maybe just see green. She says she loves being in a swamp and is thrilled to be out in the wilds of New York City, hunting for seeds that are ripe for collecting.

When the grasses get this tall - taller than an adult human - "It's hard to remember where the trail used to be," Liljengren says. Traipsing through the swampy wetlands of Staten Island's Oakland Beach, Liljengren crashes through towering phragmites, the common reeds that have invaded the world's wetlands and compete with local grasses.

She's been on the hunt for new deposits: plant seeds that might ensure the survival of the city's flora. Heather Lea Liljengren has been a seed collector and field taxonomist for the New York City Parks Department, which runs the Native Plant Center, for more than five years. That's because of a very special kind of bank: a seed bank run by the Greenbelt Native Plant Center on Staten Island. When the city replants grasses on those dunes, it will be able to draw on seeds from precisely the grasses that used to thrive there. But the storm also devastated the dunes and native flora of New York's beaches. Across the New York region, people are still working to rebuild homes and businesses after the havoc wrought by Hurricane Sandy.