kellymurphy•1mo agoProlific Poster

I tried to impress my date by naming every plant in the park and got one VERY wrong

So I took this person out for a walk in Griffith Park, feeling super confident because I've been studying local flora. I'm pointing out coast live oaks, toyon, the works. Then we get to this big shrub with purple flowers, and I go, 'Oh, that's a beautiful California lilac!' My date just starts laughing. Turns out their uncle is a botanist for the city, and they grew up with that plant. It was a Mexican bush sage. I called a sage a lilac. They were cool about it, but I wanted the ground to swallow me. Has anyone else totally botched a plant ID trying to look smart?

3 comments

3 Comments

webb.christopher19d ago

3 times I've mixed up ceanothus and manzanita over the years. My buddy's dad is a retired forest service guy, straight up called me a city kid to my face. I used to double down and argue like a fool, but @mary836 is right. Laughing with them is way better than digging yourself deeper. These days I just shrug and say "close enough" when I get it wrong.

mary8361mo ago

My cousin did that with a dandelion once. He called it a rare alpine aster to sound fancy. The key is to just laugh it off with them, because getting flustered makes it worse.

lindaw291mo ago

Totally agree about laughing it off. My friend once tried to pass off a weed from her yard as some special herb, like fancy cooking thyme. It was just this scraggly green thing. We all knew, but she sold it with such a straight face. You have to just go with it and chuckle, because calling it out turns a silly joke into a whole thing. Getting flustered gives the game away completely.

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