Just wondering how you all feel about posting plants from botanical gardens. Over the years I’ve made lots of visits to the Cleveland Botanical Garden, and have found some pretty interesting species in the Madagascar and Costa Rica glasshouses. I want to document the species I find there (especially…

Please do share! It’s nice to have photos of expert-identified plants. Just mark them cultivated/captive.

Well, you need to mark botanical garden observations as cultivated, that’s the key point. I have done it occasionally (especially if iNat doesn’t have great coverage of that species, doesn’t have flowers, whatever) but as you point out wild specimens are the main focus so I don’t post cultivated obs…

Just mark them Cultivated/Captive (not wild) :smiling_face: It s fine to observe botanical garden specimens under that condition

I do it sometimes if the species doesn’t have very many good photographs on iNat. Theoretically posting the location might possibly increase the chance of the specimen getting stolen from that garden. So maybe consider that as well.

I don’t really post cultivated plants much either. The only times I do is if it’s planted within it’s native range (oaks, maples, plants in a native plant garden, etc.), a conifer (I love conifers!), or an otherwise cool/interesting species. I always make sure to mark them as cultivated when I post …

I had considered that as well. Technically it’s not much different than posting desirable species that get dug up by passerby in parks (Trillium, Claytonia, Goodyera, Erythronium, etc.), but then again there are lots of stories of rare plants, especially aroids, getting stolen from botanical gardens…

Botanical gardens may be a good place to make very exhaustive observations of non-wild plants. Just remember to mark them properly. You can also find wild organisms. In the case of plants, if you are not totally sure it can ben wild, ask someone else.

I often take pictures of cultivated plants to have an observation of the “hosts”, when I look for interactions of insects or fungi with these plants. Also, it can be a good way of learing some species - you have the opportunity to take a picture of specific features of a plant that is already ident…

Aside from marking the observation captive/cultivated, also keep in mind that just because the label in front of the plant has a name on it, that name is not necessarily correct. Plants get misidentified, labels can get moved, and sometimes what was behind the label dies and is replaced by a weedy v…

It’s just like any other captive observation, so long as you mark as captive and don’t exclusively post captive observations, it’s fine.

Agreed. At this botanical garden there was a plant that was obviously Aloe deltoideodonta labeled as Aloe ibityensis

Etiquette of posting plants from botanical gardens?

General

andrew-gray February 6, 2024, 10:55pm 19

So sad :(

I hate seeing beautiful cycads in cages where you can’t appreciate their full glory, just because of the greed of others

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What can I post? General question	16	701	May 16, 2025
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Etiquette of posting plants from botanical gardens?

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