As per the CNC 2026 guidelines “Cultivated” flora is not accepted. Then people from cities will not find any non-cultivated flora at all - example say Pune City, MH, India. And this rule motivates people to do observe wild flora only - that may be available in near by forest area - e.g. Tamhini, Mh, India. But then, its not City area - its rural area.
So, what are city people supposed to do - bypass flora all together or focus on only herbs and shrubs that will be non-cultivated ? (all trees will be cultivated in city area right!)
Moss, fern, liverwort. Grasses etc. Garden escapees.
Before my iNat days, there were some lovely articles about looking for sidewalk weeds during COVID lockdown.
Flies. Other insects. Spiders. Pigeons. Sparrows. And weeds. Lots of tough weeds tucked into the oddest places. Mosses or liverworts between landscaping plants. Lichens on those urban tree trunks. (Not much lichen diversity there, true; they’re sensitive to air pollution.) Visit a cemetery and look around. Though we do our best to create human-only spaces, other organisms keep infiltrating, Finding them is an interesting challenge!
lets also not forget to mention any sprouted seedlings growing next to cultivated plants are no longer cultivated as far as iNaturalist is concerned. So anything that is growing “wild” even if it has a domestic parent will count. Just make sure you note that its an escapee and your observation should reach research grade.
I’ve posted wild plants from my suburban yard that could’ve been interpreted as cultivated but were volunteers. I added a note to each record to make clear they were not cultivated.
I’m glad that captive/cultivated have been excluded from the CNC. Way too much abuse of that in past CNCs.
“garden plant that is reproducing on its own and spreading outside of the intended gardening area”
is wild.
So if the plants are still in a garden/cultivated area, they would be captive (like my cilantro that keeps going all year until the winter but never leaves the raised bed).
In my garden I have never planted any trees but occasionally I find native California oaks sprouting, I don’t know where they come from but I assume they are from squirrels moving those acorns around. They usually die bc they are not growing in the best spots but I been able to keep one alive for a few seasons now… Would that plant count as wild or cultivated? It probably is a garden escapee, but it is now growing in my garden where I been helping it grow… I posted it on Inat last year when it first sprouted as wild.
While this might have been “wild” when it sprouted, I think that, if it is only still alive because you are cultivating it in a garden, it would be cultivated.
Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, which cofounded CNC, does a lot of work about urban nature. With over half of the world’s population living in urban areas, it is important to get people in urban areas interested in the nature around them.
Even in Pune, there are some natural areas like Taljai Garden where you can find wild plants. It’s definitely harder than finding cultivated ones, but still possible.
I often take photos for iNaturalist while on walks through cities around the world, and have often racked up as many as 20 or even 30 wild species during an hour or two’s stroll. There’s always a few species of birds around (especially so if the city has a river, lake or seafront), usually some small spiders or insects, snails, perhaps even lizards, frogs or squirrels depending where I am in the world. But mainly I find flora. There are often ferns and wildflowers growing on old walls, coming up between cracks or on road verges, or thriving on trees in parks and along avenues. It’s astonishing the variety of plants that will find a foothold in urban environments given half a chance, especially in the tropics. Fungi, lichens, mosses etc too. During a fleeting visit to a city-centre cemetery in Buenos Aires last year, I logged more than a dozen different wild plants.
I count as wild those plants that came up in my garden and are persisting because the garden habitat is good for them, but I’m not giving them special care. One is a sweet gum in a planting of iris and willows: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/249788953
This project only catalogs the living things in the parks of Ankara city. It also doesnt accept cultivated flora. I alone have observed and added 611 species to the project. Imagine, 611 wild species living in the city parks. I’m sure there are many more…
There is an Aesculus hippocastanum growing in a park near to me that was clearly planted. However there is a second Aesculus hippocastanum in the same park that is very likely a seedling of the first and is clearly naturally sown. Therefore it is wild. I have observed it as such and it has reached research grade.
So despite being a non-native tree growing in an urban park in a town, it is wild for iNaturalist purposes and has reached research grade.
I didn’t see anyone mention this, but that’s usually the entire point of a CNC. They aren’t to document whatever the city planted or what is growing in your apartment garden, it’s to encourage participants to realize that there IS wild nature in the city.
City cemeteries can have a surprising amount of biodiversity. “Weeds”, lichens on gravestones, bugs, mushrooms, wildlife, etc. They are an often overlooked green space.