r/NativePlantCirclejerk

In 1955, the NPG television network launched a quiz show called the $64,000 Question. Hosts would show photographs of native plants, and ask viewers to identify them. The format was wildly popular, and became a frequent part of NPG programming.

Later, the upstart NPCJ network, on the UHF band, began a series of investigative journalism reports into whether the $64,000 Question native plant identification show was rigged. Primary evidence that the game was at least unfair to contestants, if not outright rigged, was the often fuzzy quality of the photos shown, and the lack of photos of the botanical features actually needed to identify the plants.

Investigation centered on a quiz show episode requiring the identification of five asters, from two photos each, with the winner being 12-year-old Patty Duke. In later testimony before the Senate Agricultural Committee, Duke exposed that the native plant guessing game was in fact at least highly manipulated.

Here is an except from the testimony:

SENATOR: I'd like to establish your credibility as a witness. You have a squeaky clean public image, do you not?

PATTY DUKE: The squeakiest. I am squarer than Dick Clark, and twice as honest.

SENATOR: You are in the sixth grade. Are you familiar with the concept of "show your work"?

PATTY DUKE: Of course, Senator. Show your work is foundational to our educational system. Schoolteachers require it of me all the time. I get more credit for an incorrect answer well explained, than a correct answer that is unsupported.

SENATOR: When answering questions about plant identification, in the guessing games, do you ever have to show your work?

PATTY DUKE: No Senator, I do not.

SENATOR: Do you find the fact that the plant identification games you participate in, do not require you to show your work, to be suggestive that the game is rigged?

PATTY DUKE'S LAWYER: Objection. Calls for speculation.

SENATOR: There are allegations that you use an electronic robot to identify plants for you, and then submit the robot's answers as your own.

PATTY DUKE: I find the idea of a futuristic robot plant identifier to be outlandish. You've been watching too much science fiction, Senator.

SENATOR: OK, fair enough. Are you familiar with simplified identification systems, such as the Peterson A Field Guide to Wildflowers, or Newcomb's Wildflower Guide, which avoid the difficulties of abtruse dichotomous keys?

PATTY DUKE: No Senator. In 1955, color printing is expensive, and botanists are rather stuffy. An Idiot's Guide to Native Plant Identification would never sell.

SENATOR: So I take it that you own a copy of the 2-1/8 inch thick Gray's Manual of Botany, eighth edition, by M.L. Fernald, 1632 pages of small type on onion skin paper?

PATTY DUKE: Did Asa Gray teach Charles Darwin everything Charles Darwin ever knew about North American native plants?

SENATOR: How you mean?

PATTY DUKE: I mean, of course my family owns a copy of Gray's. Any American family with some interest in nature does.

SENATOR: So when, on the game show, you identified five of five asters from two photographs each, you used Gray's to key them out?

PATTY DUKE: Fuck no. Have you ever read that book?

SENATOR: How you mean?

PATTY DUKE: Aster puniceus will later come to be known as Symphyotrichum puniceum. This is the first aster I intentified in the game show episode. Here is what Fernald's Gray's says about the species:

>Stem usually stout, 0.2-2.5 m high, from hirsute with often tuberculate-based hairs or densely pilose above to glabrous, leaves of dry texture, narrowly to broadly lanceolate to narrowly subrhombic...

SENATOR: OK stop I get your point. And please use Freedom Units. And why is "tuberculate" in italics, but "pilose" isn't, but "subrhombic" is?

PATTY DUKE: You didn't even let me get to the "loose subequal linear-attenuate scarious-margined phylaries."

SENATOR: You're making that up.

PATTY DUKE: Sadly, no. I only make up that I am my own identical cousin, or Helen Keller.

SENATOR: So how then did you identify Aster puniceus as Symphyotrichum puniceum, even though the photographs did not fully display the traits needed to do this?

PATTY DUKE: I identify by intuition. I identify by sense of smell.

SENATOR: Do you know the story about the time the wealthy celebrity film actor, Robert Redford, did an expose of corruption in the television industry? Redford offered Herb Stempel a $100,000 bribe, to reveal how Stempel had been coached on correct answers, to make a quiz show more dramatic?

PATTY DUKE: Yeah. That smells. Every briber has their price, and Redford was not offering a big enough bribe for Stempel to reveal how he cheated.

SENATOR: Do you know about the concept of internet karma points?

PATTY DUKE: I don't. Please explain.

SENATOR: Imagine you are on a plant identification quiz show. You are shown two photos each of five asters. The photos do not contain enough botanical detail to actually identify the asters, like closeups showing the hairiness of a stem, or the underside of the leaves.

As a fundamental part of your education, you have been taught to show your work. But you are not required to show your work here. The game looks rigged.

A plant identification game where contestants have to say why they think a plant is x or y would be educational. But a plant identification game where contestants just blurt out answers, is not.

I can understand rigged games with big money corporate advertising sponsorship.

But why would anyone run a rigged game, just for a few imaginary internet points?

PATTY DUKE: That's the $64,000 question, Senator, isn't it?

Edit: oops, missed an “is” in the title. “I know this *is* clock app-coded.”

Northern paper wasps (Polistes fuscatus) on old field goldenrod (Solidago nemoralis). Please love them. They’re chill as hell.

(I do not and have never had a tiktok)

Mini emerged from her chrysalis on September 26th. Her wings looked completely normal and healthy. Once her wings were hardened, I took her out of the cage to tag, measure, and release her like I’ve done 300 times so far this year. I noticed that when I took her out, one side of her wings seemed off, like she couldn’t move it properly but I thought nothing of it at the time. I tagged, and measured her forewing at 53mm long.

When I tried to release her though, she attempted to fly away but nosedived into the ground over and over and over. To analyze what was wrong with her, I tossed her into the air to try and get her to fly. I noticed that she wasn’t moving the right side of her wings at all. She couldn’t flap that side.

I had never seen anything like this, her wing muscles seemed paralyzed on the right side. I tested her for OE, she didn’t have it. I thought maybe she just needed more time to warm them up, so I left her on a goldenrod flower in my garden and wished her luck.

On September 29th, curiosity got the best of me and I went to go see if she had flown away. I found her on the grass near the goldenrod. She was extremely skinny and starving. She must’ve tried to fly away but flew into the ground again. I brought her inside and offered her sugar water, which she promptly drank for 5 minutes straight 🥹. I decided I would keep her as a pet until the end of her life because she couldn’t fly and feed herself.

I set her up a little cage with sticks and flower cuttings to climb on and fruit and sugar water for her to eat. Food was always available to her, but I would manually feed her every few
hours to make sure she was eating. Her favourite food was sugar water.

For the next few days we hung out together. I would let her crawl all over me and she would watch me study and watch movies. She would climb around and flutter her wings and sunbathe under my lamp on the cloudy days. She would also attempt to fly, but would still fly straight into the ground. I did notice a little bit of improvement in her range of motion of her wings, but she still couldn’t fly.

On October 2nd though, I noticed that she started to fly short distances with some accuracy. She could fly from her cage, to me, to my bed. She was actually flapping the right side of her wings!She still wasn’t generating enough lift though and would fly downwards but it was way better than it was.

On October 3rd, she flew across my entire room and it looked like a completely normal flight of a butterfly. I was ecstatic! Mini could fly! I excitedly took her outside to see if she could fly away. And she did! She flew higher and farther until me and my mom couldn’t see her anymore 🥹. She could finally fly and migrate like a normal butterfly should. I am so proud of her and im wishing her the best of luck.

I hypothesize that her wing muscle on the right side was for some reason paralyzed and by fluttering and attempting to fly every day, she
slowly gained the ability to use that wing. I’m glad I housed her while she recovered and gave her ample food so she was able to heal.

Meet Pumpkin. He is a monarch butterfly who emerged last week. Unfortunately his wings were malformed and we found him struggling on the ground. He will never fly and although we probably should let nature take its course he now lives inside and drinks sugar water from a spoon. He also enjoys watching movies with us. I recently learned that since he is a late season butterfly he may possibly live for months… Now wondering what I have got myself into and whether I should drive him to Mexico…

Identified.

Need assistance identifying a type of squash that randomly started growing in our yard this spring. We live in Northern Illinois. We want to know for sure before we try to take one from the vine.

Photos are of one of the squash and one of the leaves.

As always. Thank you guys for any help.

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do i drink from the cursed cauldron??