The gift of awareness: What is plant blindness, and how do we combat it?

I first heard of plant blindness (also called plant awareness disparity) years ago while working in the Botany Department of the Museum where I was employed. As an advocate of plants, it’s an invisible, yet tangible foe that I’ve wrestled with on numerous occasions. The specter that embodies plant blindness would manifest itself each time I sought to capture the imagination of Herbarium visitors with the “cool” native northeastern Ohio plants, such as our native carnivorous plants, parasitic plants, or native orchids.