Currently translating Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions into modern English. Will be absent for a while until it's done lol.

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All my photos and sound recordings are public domain, so you can use them for anything you want, no credit or permission needed!

If you would like me to make videos for any plants you see me commonly observe (Especially reocurring individuals), let me know, and I'll make one for youtube :)

Uploads of observations will probably be slower from July 2023 onward because I accidentally deleted a bunch of pictures and videos I spent a lot of time on, so now I'm making my upload process a lot more systematic to make sure I don't do that again lol...

Please feel free to @ me in observations of common and small-flower papwaws if you need help identifying them!

I hate capitalism, and I want information about awesome species to be as available as possible!

If you use any of my photos in a youtube video about a species, please feel free to tag me so I can see it too! I love learning more about plants! My youtube is "Twins Gardening", where I post a ton of my videos of plants and animals also seen on iNaturalist :)

I made a guide on how to identify small-flower pawpaws and tell them apart from common pawpaws and other plants they get confused for!

You can download it in various formats (PDF, epub, word document, ect) here: https://archive.org/details/small-flower-pawpaw-identification-guide/March%202023%20Small-flower%20Pawpaw%20Identification%20guide/

And you can buy a physical copy for as cheap as I could set it here, which is $21.26: https://www.lulu.com/shop/tinyel-/small-flower-pawpaw-identification-and-differentiation-guide/hardcover/product-kr2jz9.html?q=small-flower+pawpaw&page=1&pageSize=4

(I meant for it to be set so you only have to pay the site to print it, so it'd be as cheap as possible at $10.63, but they won't let me set the price any lower than it is >:( Please download and check out the free version before deciding to spend money on it!)

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Pronouns are it/its, I am autistic, aroace, and nonbinary :)

-What does it mean that my pronouns are it/its?

It means that when reffering to me, you should use "it" in place of "she" or "he", and "its" in place of "hers" or "his".

Here's an example:

"That's nonbinary-naturalist, it's the top identifier for small-flower pawpaws! It lives in Savannah, and is always taking pictures of birds and plants when it goes on walks or rides its bike!"

-What does nonbinary mean?

Nonbinary means not-binary. Binary means two, and in this case, the binary refers to the "gender binary" of "male/man" and "female/woman".

Someone who is nonbinary is transgender, but instead of "going from" one binary gender to the other (male to female, or female to male), they are instead a gender that isn't just male or female.

Nonbinary people can be no gender (sometimes called agender), both male and female, male or female and something else, constantly moving between genders, and anything and anywhere in between.

Anyone can be nonbinary, yes, even you reading this! There's no age limit for questioning your gender. If you don't feel that "man" or "woman" suit you, you can be nonbinary :)

I am nonbinary, and I am also aroace, otherwise known as aromantic and asexual.

-What do these words mean?

Asexual or ace = someone who doesn't experience sexual attraction, or only experiences it in specific circumstances, or very rarely. (This isn't the same thing as being celibate, which is when people /choose/ not to pursue sexual relationships, usually for religious reasons.)

Aromantic = someone who doesn't experience romantic attraction, or only experiences it in specific circumstances, or very rarely.

Aroace means you're both asexual and aromantic in some way, and for me, it means I never experience sexual or romantic attraction, nor do I want a relationship of any kind.

My orientation affects my gender identity, since I am not attracted to anyone and don't want anyone to be attracted to me.

So I like to describe my gender as being like a nonhumanoid alien who is visiting Earth for the first time, who is confused and alarmed by humans flirting with it.

My icon is a flower with a wasp on it in the colors of the aroace flag (orange, yellow, white, light blue, navy blue), and the flower petals in the colors of the xiqyne flag, which is the name I gave the way I describe my gender. It also includes the trans pride flag (blue, pink, white, pink, and blue) as the background.

Xiqyne is known as a "xenogender", or a gender that is described using metaphors or comparisons, rather than just "I'm male" or "I'm female". The xiqyne flag colors are dark magenta, magenta, sky blue, ice blue, pale green, and pale yellow. Xenogenders can be about just the way you describe your gender, or, like mine, they can combine your orientation with your gender to show a better picture of your experiences.

I am currently running a gofundme so that I can raise money to change my legal name. Here is the link if you would like to donate, any money left over at the end will go towards paying rent and other bills: https://gofund.me/4e46cfb8 It's at $200 so far, but unfortunately that had to be used to cover rent :'(

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The observation that introduced me to iNaturalist -- desperately searching every way I could think to describe these caterpillars trying to identify them!

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/69438906

I moved from Hanover, Pensylvania, to Savannah, Georgia, in March 2021. I have so many observations for Savannah already because everything is so densly packed I can walk down the same path and keep finding new things I didn't notice before. I don't have a car, so my range is limited to how far I can reasonably walk or bike.

I think the fact that I'm the top observer for small-flower pawpaws is just because I'm walking more and know what to look for. I bet there are tons more in this area than have been observed.

I'm the top identifier for common pawpaws because I decided I wanted to see when they flower and fruit, and the only way to have the graph filled out nicely is to go through every single observation and mark whether it's flower budding, flowering, fruiting, or has no evidence of flowers. I already did this with small-flower pawpaws, and now I'm working on common pawpaws.

At this point I have it set to show all pawpaws, so they'll get annotations in backwards chronological order, and then at some point I'll learn how to identify all the different species of pawpaws found in Florida.

15,296 to go as of 8/8/22 12:57am

I have it sorted to show the oldest observations first, so if you have new ones that need identified, I'll get there eventually. You can also feel free to @ me and I'll help if I can :)

If you are able to add annotations to any of my observations, please do so! For a lot of species, I don't know for sure how to tell males from females or adults from juveniles, so help is welcome!

All the photos and sounds in my observations are public domain because in this house we hate capitalism :) I'd prefer you link back to iNaturalist if you use them, so more people will learn about and join the site, but it's not a requirement.

Public Domain means you can use the image or sound without needing permission or to give credit. You can use them for literally anything you want, including designs you sell, as long as you aren't claiming you're the one who took the picture!

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Some good comparison examples between small-flower pawpaws and common pawpaws:

Compare their stem color and leaf texture, and more subtly, the leaf shape.

Common: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/13180081. Light green new growth stem, very "wrinkly" leaves at the veins.

Small-flower: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/12933877 Light brown or yellow new growth stem, very smooth leaves, especially further back the stem where the older ones are.

This small-flower pawpaw shows the very distinct cinnamon color that the new growth takes on as the stem ages: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/81977223

And here's a common persimmon to compare them both to: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/99800187. Notice the pink at the base of the leaf-stem.

And a hickory: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/79536694. Note that the leaves are actually leaflets, opposite eachother on their stem except for the one at the end. The leaves are also serrated, though you have to look closely to see it. Hickories have large leaves, and might appear to be pawpaws if you don't look for the details.

I also made a playlist on youtube of some of the small-flower pawpaws I've found, and I'll make more when I find more plants, and later in the year so you can see how they progress through the seasons.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Qf1pKYJWQQ&list=PLpFcEwm88RUu1w3GbDFGd0GBJjc1wT-E2

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Some resources:

Convert video to audio, for when you don't have time to wait for the app to open so you can record sound, but you can record video:
https://www.freeconvert.com/convert/video-to-mp3

Make gifs from videos:
https://ezgif.com/maker

My playlist of videos about small-flower pawpaws:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Qf1pKYJWQQ&list=PLpFcEwm88RUu1w3GbDFGd0GBJjc1wT-E2

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I am currently on a mission to add plant phenology annotations to all observations of pawpaws! One I'm done that, I'll go through all the observations of common pawpaws and small-flower pawpaws to make sure they're all correct :) There's a lot of them that are Research Grade that are misidentified!

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If you live in or are able to travel to Littlestown, Pennsylvania, I will owe you a debt of eternal gratitude if you go to Littlestown Park, and take pictures of the hickory trees that grow there, in this location: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/69435516.

It looks a bit weird from the satellite view, but its within the boundary of the park, with a creek in the middle and the road at the edge.

My friends and I collected a lot of nuts from the trees, but it was long before I learned about iNaturalist, and I had a very basic cheap smart phone with a terrible camera, and don't have any pictures :(

There's also a black walnut tree right next to the road! And you can keep an eye out for nutria in the creek/lake, and water snakes, and hummingbirds, and belted kingfishers, and snapping turtles, and toads, and common jewelweed, and all the other things I don't have pictures of :(