The 12 year old who corrected my fern ID at the arboretum

I was at the Dallas Arboretum last Saturday walking through the shade garden, and this kid with a magnifying glass walks up to a fern I had labeled in my head as a maidenhair. He looks at it for like 5 seconds and says, "That's actually a spleenwort, the sori are linear not rounded." My jaw dropped, because I've been doing this hobby for 6 years and he was totally right. I checked my field guide on my phone and the leaf shape confirmed it. Made me wonder how many other plants I've been silently misidentifying just because I never checked the spore pattern. Has anyone else been schooled by a random kid or beginner who saw something you missed for years?

1 comments

1 Comment

burns.jenny29d ago

Oh man, kids are brutal little truth detectors! I got corrected by a neighbor's 8 year old about a maple tree once, and I still think about it sometimes. He just looked up and said "that's a silver maple, not a sugar maple" and walked off. I had been telling people wrong for years. It makes you wonder how many other things I just glance at and assume. Maybe I need to start carrying a hand lens around like that kid, honestly. It's humbling but also kind of cool that they care that much about plants.