Admitting mistakes is hard to do. It’s especially hard when it is a public mistake, even when it was an accidental mistake.
I’m not a botanist, only an amateur. I study books, pictures, descriptions to identify the plants I find. There are huge folders of pictures labeled unknown on my computer.
Sunflowers are notoriously difficult to identify. I came across one that seemed so different, it had to be easy to identify.
Overconfidence breeds mistakes.
I studied various sources and decided this plant was the Ashy Sunflower and have believed this for ten years. And been mistaken for ten years.
There is an old saying that none are so blind as those who will not see. That was me.
The sunflowers are coming into bloom again. And I am taking pictures of them again. And putting most into the unknown folder again.
Meeting this old friend was pleasant until I took pictures and realized something I had blindly overlooked: the leaf arrangement.
Simple plant leaves are grouped into opposite where the leaves stick out across from each other, whorled where more than one leaf sticks out across from each other, basal where the leaves are from a central ground source and alternate where one leaf goes off followed by another in a different direction further up the stem.
Ashy Sunflowers have opposite leaves. My familiar plant has alternate leaves. It is not an Ashy Sunflower.
Admitting mistakes believed true for years is very hard. I didn’t believe what I saw. I checked other plants. The leaves were alternate. I was wrong and I had posted this mistake, insisting I was right.
My plant is a Texas Green Eyes. The pictures on www.missouriplants.com make this obvious. I have fixed this mistake in my botany project.
Everyone makes mistakes about lots of things. We can believe these mistakes for years. We blindly believe them even when presented with evidence we are wrong.
Admitting mistakes may be hard, but changing our mistaken beliefs seems to be even harder.
