Format: ORAL

Renee M. Clary1, Melanie Link-Perez2

1 Department of Geosciences, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, USA; 15 Degree Laboratory 2 University of Tampa, Florida, USA

When first identified in 1998, the construct of Plant Blindness captured public attention and summarized botanists frustration with peoples inattention to plants. The term grew in popularity over two decades and continues to be regularly invoked outside the United States, with visual cognition explanations as the root cause for the observed plant perception biases. With increasing awareness of the need for respectful communication for supportive and inclusive societies, researchers appropriately revisited the concept and recommended a new title of Plant Awareness Disparity.Their goal of moving away from ableist language to describe this cognitive inattention toward plants is noble and forces reexamination of the language we use. While we applaud efforts to encapsulate public botanical inattention through considerate terminology, we propose that the journey to rename Plant Blindness has not reached its natural community-based conclusion. We suggest that inclusive nomenclature for the community must arise from the community. We present our current research-based efforts to identify a ground-sourced alternative to Plant Blindness, through which we invite participation of diverse voices to identify a ground-sourced alternative.