Im still pretty new here and Ive started getting more interested in it since I was told and taught how to use INatrualist. But I have a question as to whether what to upload and what not to. Are native plants junk posts and if they are Im sorry if I posted junk. Also would it be considered junk posting if I uploaded my flowers from my garden to see if they could be identified?
iNaturalist is primarily intended for wild species.
āNative speciesā are ones that naturally tend to live in your area ā they can be wild or sometimes they can be planted, because sometimes native species are deliberately chosen and planted by gardeners, or are planted as part of a restoration.
As for your garden plants, it is a good idea to keep cultivated plant observations to a minimum, so try to see that your wild stuff observations outnumber your planted stuff observations. And make sure anything that is planted is marked āCultivatedā or
'Not wild".
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Youāre free to upload your garden plants if you want to as long as you mark them as cultivated.
Also yeah thereās no reason to consider uploading native species as ājunkpostingā since thatās the main purpose of the site
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The posting of native plants and animals is the complete opposite of junk posting and is the main goal of iNaturalist. Did you perhaps mean non-native or non-wild organisms?
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Oh ok thank you. Its just that Ive been wondering what their names were because I forgot and Ive seen neighbours with flowers that look like mine but it looks like a totally different plant so it got me really curious. And I was thinking that inaturalist might have some information on the plants since it seems like a better source than google.
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You can always use āseekā. Take a picture with the app and its pretty good at providing the right identification.
And from there you can upload into iNaturalist if you want.
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Is seek only available for phone?
Alternatively if you just want to see what the computer vision system thinks it is, you can submit photos to run thru the system without creating observations here
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Thank you, I have a question though. Could I be able to find the wild version of the plants in my garden on Inaturalist or do you think it would be unlikely
Canāt answer that one, I have it on my phone. But it generally works really well.
Thank you for your feedback! Im so happy my questions could be answerd everyone here is so helpful. My day has been really made :)
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Thatās impossible to answer definitively. Pretty much every cultivated plant you can think of has likely been uploaded to the site at some point. In many cases wild individuals will have been uploaded too.
But that depends on how obscure the stuff you plant is
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Technically yes, but Iād say the really obscure ones are probably sitting at Plantae or have the ID of something more common. Iāve come across a few more obscure ones where there arenāt any other observations of it.
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I think you will like reading this FAQ about how to enjoy using iNaturalist to share your nature experiences. Itās pretty well done.
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