>>2726864What you get called out on is not your opinion, it is objective reality and fact. The western United States is one of the most biodiverse places in the world (in plant species, animal and invertebrate species) and there are massive misconceptions, preconceptions. and stereotypes about it in the minds of closed up mentally boxed in people. And most of the plant species of states like CA, AZ, NM and TX are medicinal and edible, most as in upwards of 2/3rds of all native plants there (in some journals over 80% and native americans already knew about most of them). There is beauty anywhere, and your preference is your own. But denying the objective fact and quantification of reality out of spite regarding the biological and climatological diversity of the western US (and other places subject to mental stereotypes like Australia and Mexico) is akin to mental illness and putting yourself in a tiny mental box. If you actually explored these places you wouldn't even have developed your cognitive dissonance in the first place.
I have uploaded several thousand pictures of AZ that I've taken myself over the last 13+ years here, and I've seen them reused by people other than me and confused for Tennessee, Maine, Kentucky, Canada, PNW, TX, and places in Europe (I've been to all of those place also besides Europe). And in 20+ years of exploring and outing almost daily in my own local area I haven't even scratched the surface of my own county let alone the state. There is a famous local researcher down south here that has outed in the same canyon more than 1250 times and he has personally documented over 1,000 species of plants in the same small canyon. I'm at 310 plant species in my own local canyon (in about 2.5-3 miles).
