Hi Gene
Acorns are like "Green Stamps" if you are old enough to remember those.
Admins give them out for contributing things like photos or new entries in the plant database, and tips or articles. Members sometimes give them to each other or to forum posts as "tips" or compliments or a sign of strong agreement.
They can be used to buy the small "micro-badges" you see in many members' posts (upper right corner) to indicate interests. (Five acorns per badge.) There are occasional raffles where you can "buy" raffle tickets with acorns. And Dave and Trish sometimes sell ATP Tee shirts or coffee mugs for cash or acorns.
Here are a few links that give the details:
http://garden.org/ideas/view/T...
http://garden.org/special/acor...
You can see how many you have thus:
Go to "Your Profile" (the head-and-shoulders icon upper left:
Page down enough to find this, go past "Your Plant List":
Acorns:
You have XX.YY acorns in your account.
Not as far down, you can see how many you've received and given out:
"Some info about ..."
scroll down to:
Items given special acorn tips: XX received, YY given.
