At the heart of every naturalist is a curiosity and hope to discover something new. Lisa Miller never thought her discovery would be a small plant no larger than a button.

The plant, a federally threatened species with the nickname "Tiny Tim," was found growing in Oklahoma for the first time by Miller in 2023 at Skiatook Lake. 

"I think a lot of nerdy naturalists like me always have hope and think 'what if I discover something,'" Miller said. "I just never thought I would discover something like that. It was amazing." 

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Lisa Miller/CC-BY-NC

“Tiny Tim” growing near Skiatook Lake with a U.S. quarter placed nearby as a size reference. 

More about Tiny Tim 

As the common name suggests, Tiny Tim is a pocket-sized plant that grows only to about 1.5 inches in height. The winter annual, more formally known as Geocarpon minimum or earth fruit, emerges with miniature rosettes as early as November and its inconspicuous flowers bloom in early spring. Plants are most visible for about a month during the blooming and fruiting season. Younger individuals are usually light green and may become darker green or reddish-purple as they mature.  

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Amy Buthod/CC-BY-NC

Tiny Tim is most often found in open areas with highly mineralized soils. In the Ozarks and Cross Timbers, it is often associated with rocky outcrops in forested openings, also known as “glades.” In the Arkansas Valley and South Central Plains, it occurs along the edges of bare soil “slick spots.”  

The succulent-like forb was listed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as a threatened species in June 1987. Prior to the Oklahoma discoveries, 41 populations were known from Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas.

Miller, a self-professed botany and bird nerd, visited Skiatook Lake in March 2023 to look for the early spring flowers her friends had noticed blooming along a publicly accessible trail. Among them was a plant new to Miller, Texas saxifrage. After reading a dichotomous key – as true botany nerds are prone to do when encountered with a new plant – she learned that Texas saxifrage and two other plants, golden selenium and yellow sedum, are indicators Tiny Tim also may be found.  

“I remembered hearing about Geocarpon while in college at Missouri Western State University, Miller said. “So, I did a little research and learned it had been found in Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana. I thought, ‘there’s no reason that it shouldn’t be in Oklahoma.’” 

Miller returned to the Skiatook glade in which she found the saxifrage but didn’t have any luck finding Tiny Tim. When telling her husband, Chuck Merchant, about her unsuccessful day, Merchant encouraged her to continue the search.   

“He said, ‘I think you need to try at least one more time. Let’s go back out.’”  

Miller knew of other public sandstone glades around Skiatook Lake and after striking out at their first stop, found the plant growing on the second glade they visited. The couple went to at least one more site that day and found Tiny Tim growing there as well.  

“My husband isn’t really into nature stuff,” Miller said. “I drag him with me and he’s just such a good sport. He helps me look for birds and plants and gives me encouragement. I love that he’s part of this story.” 

Tiny Tim Makes It Big 

To report the discovery of Tiny Tim and determine the next steps in the scientific process, Miller reached out to Amy Buthod, a botanist at the Oklahoma Biological Survey. The two met briefly in 2018 at an event hosted by the agency and share a mutual plant friend, Rusty Grimpe, who provided Miller with Buthod’s contact information.  

“We all met at the Skiatook site the very next week,” Buthod said. “I had looked at aerial photos and flagged a few more spots to check. The four of us went through the briars and brambles and found two more sites with Geocarpon that day. It was all very exciting.” 

Buthod passed the news of Miller’s discovery and the larger population of Tiny Tim growing at Skiatook Lake to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the federal agency focused on the recovery and conservation of listed plant and animal species. Once the formal notification was taken care of, Miller posted her observation on iNaturalist, a free nature platform, with a note that “the correct people have been notified and the ball is rolling.” Buthod and Miller later shared their findings with the scientific community in their joint paper, Geocarpon Minimum (Caryophyllaceae), New to Oklahoma, U.S.A.  

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Miller’s iNaturalist observation of Tiny Tim, currently identified by a different scientific name on the site, is one of thousands she’s shared in the past decade. The platform allows users to log sighting details and photographs of any organism with the option to keep sensitive locations obscured or private. iNaturalist automatically recommends species identifications when photographs are uploaded. Members of the iNat community also may recommend identifications once the observation has been posted.   

Tiny Tim may have been officially documented in Oklahoma and the news shared with the scientific and lay communities, but its story doesn’t end with the Skiatook Lake discovery. Buthod and Miller’s next step was to expand the search for Tiny Tim on public land. As a state botanist, Buthod received funding from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to complete additional surveys in 2024. Together, she and Miller have documented six distinct populations on three public lands in Central Oklahoma with plans to search even more sites in 2025.  

“This is a great addition to the flora of the state,” Buthod said. “And there’s no way that we would know about this plant in Oklahoma without Lisa’s discovery. There are very few active field botanists in the state right now and I would probably not ever have been at this particular place in that particular time. 

“We honestly would not know about this plant without Lisa.”