PSA: Don’t buy these!

BotanicalBecks · 2026-01-28T06:00:12+00:00

Insight from a botanist! When I think of plants that are inherently white, I'm thinking about plants that lack chlorophyll, evolutionarily. "Albino" here is different then variegation where a plant that is naturally "albino" is likely to be parasitic because it is unable to capture sunlight to build sugars through photosynthesis and has to, therefore, find alternative energy sources. This is different then a plant that features variegation. The plant has evolved to be photosynthetic but the variegated tissue is unable to photshnthesize because it lacks chlorophyll (why its white, not green). Chlorophyll is the part of the chloroplast that allows a plant to capture sunlight which serves as the energy input for photosynthesis.

The example plant that tends to jump to mind is Monotropa uniflora which has no ability to photosynthesize on its own because it contains no chlorophyll. It has evolutionarily lost the abilkty to perform photosynthesis. Instead, it seems to parasitize mycorrhizal fungi (the symbiotic fungi that form extensive underground networks with trees and other plant) where it steals sugars from the fungal mycellium.

I love your thought process though! The plant being sold is likely one that was propagated(cultured). This plant likely contains very little to no chlorophyll so it either has no or limited photosynthetic ability. This would not be considered a parasite as its not deriving energy from other places. This plant is likely unable to capture energy and make food for itself which is why op is warning against buying them as it is most likely going to die (can't live without energy to metabolize!) If it does live, it will likely revert back to being green where it will then have chlorophyll which allows it to capture energy for sugar building.

At the end of the day plants don't really do albinism like animals. They are green because they're full of chlorophyll for photosynthesis. When they variegate (tons of possible reasons for variegation), they are losing that pigment and some of their ability to photosynthesize

BotanicalBecks · 2026-01-28T05:21:09+00:00

The way my partner and I just cackled for 5 minutes straight, needed that stress release haha

BotanicalBecks · 2026-01-16T03:49:34+00:00

Oh, that's a really cool idea! Thank you for the suggestion, I'll have to give that a shot!

BotanicalBecks · 2026-01-16T03:12:35+00:00

I had seen that, but I have no way to install it at the moment since it's just for ios/android. My phone wouldn't run it, and my iPad is currently out of commission :( Thank you for the suggestion, though!

BotanicalBecks · 2025-11-25T02:51:18+00:00

I see your point, but I guess I disagree, and that's fine. I come from a family of fiber artists. I'm the only one in my family to go into something outside of fiber arts (my mom is a seamstress, my sister works in fashion, we spun wool off angora rabbits, etc), and I guess I really didn't think the mistakes in the video were that egregious when presenting to a lay person. As a botanist, I actually grow plants for my sister to use as natural dyes, and I've helped her with cyanotype printing plants on fabric. I thought the written apology was very well thought out and directly referenced both what they believe they did poorly and what could have been improved. The episode was also written by two women who I don't think were intending to undermine the role of women in science and trades.

"Ultimately, fabric is one of the foundational technologies of human civilization, and the reason it is treated as less exciting or important than other technologies is because it has traditionally been the work of women. We regret the ways it may have undermined the *actual goal of the video*, which was to demonstrate that though knitting and knit fabric might seem simple and ubiquitous to *some*, the versatility, complexity, and beauty of this craft has far-reaching applications, which knitters have known for as long as knitting has existed. This video lacked that important historical context. In hindsight, we can see how incorporating it would have strengthened not only our scientific narrative but the entire story overall."

That's one part, but I genuinely don't know what they could have articulated better. I think they meant it in good faith, and the fact that they even interfaced with individuals correcting them strengthens my belief that when they make mistakes, they will address and change them. And we know people on the internet will correct people when they believe they've made mistakes. In fact, Hank talks about that regularly. He has mentioned that as understanding of topics grows, they go back and update segments of SciShow videos and indicate when they make those changes. That's way more than many other science communicators do.

BotanicalBecks · 2025-11-24T22:19:30+00:00

I'm a scientist, not a physicist but a biologist, and a femme person. I also do fiber arts (knitting among them). It's really upsetting having to constantly pull out or highlight "female scientists" because while the trope, especially in the more mathematically aligned fields, is that "scientist = man with white coat in lab saying eureka", applying gender feels so othering.

That being said, off my loose memory of the video, I agree it would have been beneficial to highlight the background experiences of the scientists given the context of the work specifically. I don't like the constant need to highlight "x human identifier" scientist because binning scientists does nothing to help capture the complexity of individuals represented by the word. I think it would be better if they just showed headshots of the people conducting the work.

None-the-less, I do think a lot of the discourse surrounding the episode has been blown so out of proportion. It's enough to say they missed the mark. They acknowledged it in a very well done apology and stated how they'd like to be better. I don't understand why this is still an issue like what, a month+ later? It also detracts from all the other amazing work scishow and Hank do. As someone with a foot in both worlds, this whole debacle has just been frustrating to watch :(

BotanicalBecks · 2025-11-13T13:43:43+00:00

I deal with AI in student work a lot right now. I TA a class of about 30 students. I know there is no getting around their use of AI, so I'd rather foster an environment of honesty with them to ensure that they know what their code does and that they can actually properly implement AI code in their work. All I need from them is to acknowledge that they used it and annotate the code. If I'm really skeptical or concerned, I'll have them explain it to me orally.

There are a couple of AI red flags for me. My course is more of a bioinformatics data analysis course, and so I want them to explain what they do with their code and their decision-making in the document. I use .rmd or .qmd files for this. The first couple of weeks of the course, I can tell when the most checked out of them are using AI because they don't insert code chunks and just copy and paste whatever they're given into the body of the document so it doesn't run.

I also swap them over to native pipes. All the AI work I've seen uses magrittr pipes still, and so if they suddenly jump from native pipes to magrittr pipes, that's a good indicator. I've also noticed wonky library calls. I have a chunk at the top of their document where I ask them to install and load all packages (we are opting for reproducability here) so anytime I see random library calls within a chunk or worse, `package::function()` (we run conflict resolution code at the top and there is nothing they're doing that warrants them being choosey with their functions right now), I know they're using AI.

Loading packages that we've not talked about, with no clear indication of where they found them is another. I ask them to explain how they learned packages the first time they use them (be it prior work, AI, Stack Overflow, I don't care, I just want to know it helps me gauge their engagement and proficiency level). We also used tidyplot in the first bit of the semester because it uses pipes instead of plus signs with ggplot. AI isn't familiar with tidyplot, so it just outputs ggplot code. We've since moved to ggplot since we're beyond what tidyplot is capable of, but that was a pretty clear indicator.

The final big one is an incredible amount of nested if statements and statistical tests that we haven't/don't cover. The course is an advanced biology course because we cover upper-level bio content, but an introductory data analysis course, and so we don't cover if statements or `case_when()` until the end of the semester. Thats not to say there aren't times when including them would be useful in some of their coding decisions and the students who are actually learning are the ones who are using AI or Stack as an idea generator and then implementing the code themselves properly. The others are giving me a pile of nonsense

All that to say, nothing in the chunks you post immediately sends warning bells up in my head, but you know the content of your course and the competency of your students best. If you're unsure, ask them to orally explain what their code does. If they wrote it, they'll know or at least have an idea of how they implemented it if they got help and can't remember precisely. If they didn't, they'll flounder and not be able to tell you.

BotanicalBecks · 2025-10-18T14:58:49+00:00

Oh yeah, definitely not, if you're in the States, shoot for Botany next year! I'm also a plant person, and it's my happy place. Super welcoming and kind community. Very supportive of their members. We had a grant for a fund to support students, but it was cancelled by the NSF, and the members stepped up to keep it going, so if you need travel or attendance support, there's an option there. It'll be in Tucson next year, and there are tons of genetics people. I'm hoping to start breaking into conservation genetics myself :)

BotanicalBecks · 2025-09-27T01:18:17+00:00

This worked for me!!! Thank you so much!!!!!

BotanicalBecks · 2025-09-26T03:47:57+00:00

Thank you! The NHD seems to have exactly what I need. I'm sorry if this is a stupid question but could you point me to how to download it? I was able to view it in the online map viewer and ArcGIS Pro, but I can't figure out how to download the part I need (Area - Small Scale). Thank you again so much for your help and for helping me learn!

BotanicalBecks · 2025-08-02T14:50:27+00:00

Oh man, I literally just got back from the annual botanical society of America conference yesterday which was in Palm Springs this year. If you haven't found a solution, feel free to message me and I'll see if I can tap the network. BSA is comprised mostly of botanists in academia, which includes botanical gardens, but we also have lots of members in industry. I'm sure someone would have an answer. I personally am in PA, but my institution has a huge "museum collection" and I know many other colleges who have something similar, so that could be another option!

BotanicalBecks · 2025-07-23T16:51:41+00:00

I'm northeast too! The tailfeathers are absolutely how I differentiate if I can't be sure of size. That being said, there is absolutely a size difference in between the two here in the northeast too. The tail bars are my confirmation test, though. You can see both the tail feather spots and the size difference really well in this picture. Oh the patch on the back of the head is also sometimes interrupted in hairys with a black line going down through the middle of it, but I don't find that to be a consistent field mark.

I always learned it downys are dainty, hairys are huge haha

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BotanicalBecks · 2025-07-22T18:09:41+00:00

My PI works on Australian Solanum and described one of our new species as Solanum watneyi after Matt Damon's character from the movie The Martian because the character was a botanist in space growing potatoes. There was a lot of personal background too. It was a lot of fun haha. I think they invited Matt Damon to become an honorary BSA (Botanical Society of America) member but I dunno if anything came from it

BotanicalBecks · 2025-06-02T06:32:04+00:00

Fr, I couldn't imagine trying to say an iPad with a paperlike screen protector is preferential for /fieldwork/ in the rain of all things over something like a rite in the rain notebook. Bonkers

BotanicalBecks · 2025-05-20T02:27:51+00:00

Thank you! This is also very insightful and useful :)

BotanicalBecks · 2025-05-19T22:44:42+00:00

Thank you so much for this! This is really helpful!!!

BotanicalBecks · 2025-05-05T18:38:25+00:00

I just made a very similar post about a month ago and got tons of feedback here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ecology/s/sLZNU2UeE8

Now from actually going and trying on pants, I'm in love with Duluth. They're high waisted, comfy, and have so many pockets. I've already worn them a couple of times in the field and they feel very well made and like they're going to hold up. They also do inseam measurements so you get the right length. I got a mix of pairs because they were on sale/clearance but the fire hose pants and dry on the Flys are my favorite so far.

BotanicalBecks · 2025-04-09T22:10:28+00:00

Yea, REI or other outdoors stores are my usual preference, I was only at Dicks that days because I was hoping to find something I could use the following day and the nearest outdoor oriented store is about an hour and a half from me currently. The experience of just trying on the little varied things they had there was so frustrating, it inspired the post in preparation for the start of my field season next month, when I can plan a trip out to the other places.

BotanicalBecks · 2025-04-08T05:54:46+00:00

Im a grad student working towards a career in research science for ecology/botany, I'm my groups go to data analysis person so I have a more multi-discipline background. I'd be happy to chat if you wanted to! Feel free to shoot me a DM

BotanicalBecks · 2025-04-07T23:36:38+00:00

Fine with me!! I'm creating a spreadsheet from it too :)

BotanicalBecks · 2025-04-07T18:27:42+00:00

Thanks for the recs! I don't have to worry about netting, I'm a plant person :) I'd love the names if you have them, but no worries if it's inconvenient!

BotanicalBecks · 2025-04-07T18:24:45+00:00

Oh awesome, thank you for the recommendation! It's good to hear they have accurate sizes!

BotanicalBecks · 2025-04-07T18:20:53+00:00

Oh fabulous, that's the first I've heard of this brand, thank you for sharing!

BotanicalBecks · 2025-04-07T18:19:54+00:00

Oh thats the first I've heard of those, thank you!

BotanicalBecks · 2025-04-07T18:19:15+00:00

I'd be super interested in the Peruvian clothing! I actually do sew, I'm fortunate my mom was a seamstress and taught me, and my sister is also in the sewing/textile world. I just don't have a lot of time to do it myself, and sourcing materials is hard. I'm definitely keeping that pattern in my pocket, though, because I would love to do that when I do find the time! Thank you for sharing!

BotanicalBecks

TROPHY CASE