My Introduction to the INaturalist World
Hello People!
I am the owner of this little cute 'corporation' that I called Michigan Fairies. We like to study native orchids at young ages and also find ways to prevent poaching and population loss. My goal in the future is to be able to grow Michigan's orchids from seed and eventually be able to sell them!
..once I have those thousands of permits lol.
I am 13 years old and autistic with a massive obsession with orchids. I started growing orchids when I was 6. The first orchid I ever got was a purple Dendrobium that is now deceased. I actually burned the orchid and put the ashes in an ash jar to remember it. At the age of 7, I knew a bunch of crazy scientific orchid names and information about orchids that not many others knew. I had a greenhouse full of exotic orchids and I was proud of myself for once!
..until their blooming stopped and I noticed white fuzz..
That was my introduction to the Mealybugs.
Those horrid things basically wiped out my whole greenhouse. To this day, I only have 2 out of the 16 orchids still alive. I started to loose motivation in growing orchids when I remembered one thing...
When I was maybe... lets say around 7, I went to the Maxton Plains Alvar on Drummond Island in search of Prairie Smoke and Indian Paintbrush. We found both of them, and one other species...
I had no idea what it was. I described it as the floating yellow shoe. My dad was very excited though. He said we found Lady Slippers. I was confused out of my mind until I did research later that day and found out what we found was an orchid. I didn't even know orchids grew up here in Michigan! And little did I know that we had over 50 orchid species growing in Michigan!
Ever since learning that, I have been one of those people on those multi-year-long quests to photograph all of Michigan's orchids. Except I have a bit of spice added up to photographing all of Michigan's orchids...
I have a quest to be one to discover new orchid hybrids! I wish to discover new types of orchid hybrids because I think that would be awesome and cool. I don't really care about fame.
Inaturalist has helped me out a lot this year in finding orchids to enjoy. I used to use the University of Michigan's 'Michigan Flora', but that was kinda inaccurate, as some of the records were from the 1800'S!!
All I want to do is enjoy my life and enjoy orchids in their wild habitats. By saying that, I request a small amount of help.. What is some advice y'all can give me? Where have you found wild orchids? What should I expect in certain habitats?
I'm looking for some people I can trust to take me on adventures (virtually or actually in person) to see the real natural side of Michigan.
For now, enjoy my finds on my slow journey!
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