The team went about their work efficiently cataloguing sample from every plant and every part of every plant. A leaf might have a different chemical composition or different concentrations of compounds than the stem. The inner part of the stem might differ from the outer part. Each plant, therefore required several samples and each sampler had to look at each plant and try to determine how many different areas needed to be chosen from each plant. Even the soil adjacent to the roots was sampled in case the plant was either exuding some compound into the soil or supporting some symbiotic microbes underground.