ABOUT ME
I'm a self-taught/self-studied botany hobbyist living in Omaha, Nebraska, USA. My love of botany began in 2021, after purchasing my first home.

I regularly observe the plants present in my suburban yard each year, with a focus on morphology and phenology. I try to also be observant of fauna, funga, and other forms of life along the way, but plants are my primary interest.

In addition to adding my own observations, I aim to add an identification to all plant observations from Nebraska. I'm working family by family, starting with families I've observed in my own yard, in the order they appear in Flora of North America. I'm currently working through Urticaceae from Volume 3.

I use iNaturalist to learn about plants and to help others to do the same. Please feel free to interact with me in any way that aligns with one of those two goals.

PLANT IDENTIFICATION
The resources I consult on a regular basis are two floras and a plant glossary:

• Flora of North America North of Mexico [Online | Print]
• The Flora of Nebraska, 2nd edition, 2011, by Robert Kaul, David Sutherland, and Steven Rolfsmeier. [Print]
• The Kew Plant Glossary, 2nd edition, 2020, by Henk Beentje. [Print]

MACRO PHOTOGRAPHY
I don't consider myself a photographer, but I've been asked on multiple occasions how I get my close-up photographs.

Up until the end of 2023, I used successive generations of Google Pixel smartphones (4a, 6a, and 7 Pro) for my photographs. For macro work, I had a set of four Bausch & Lomb Hastings triplet hand lenses (4x, 10x, 14x, and 20x) that I held up to my phone camera and photographed through.

In 2024, I switched from my smartphone/hand lens setup to a dedicated camera with macro photography features -- an OM System Tough TG-7 with ring light and flash diffuser attachments.

IDENTIFICATION LINKS
For my own convenience:
Unknown
Kingdom and Above (Excluding Bacteria, Fungi, and Viruses)
Taxa of Interest