Help me identify (non-experts welcome)

[pisum]

There’s been some talk about how to distribute the task of identification in iNaturalist to a larger group. I suspect that a lot of potential identifiers out there don’t know where to even begin. So this thread is intended to provide some information on specific taxa that will be easy for anyone to pick up and begin identifying. It will also provide a mechanism to track those who are interested in identifying. (That way, the usual identifiers will know who these people are and can step back and help guide them a little more.)

For experts (or knowledgeable non-experts) who want help cleaning up / maintaining taxa, please add a “Help me identify [XXX]” post that explains how others can help. A general request/tutorial for identification should follow these general guidelines:

1. only taxa that can be easily identified by non-experts given a little guidance
2. guidance that consists of no more than 5 traits to look out for and no more than 3 commonly confused taxa
3. guidance on when a genus level taxon can be marked as “as good as it can be”, if applicable
4. guidance on geography, if appropriate
5. maybe a little blurb or links to info about the taxon to tell people why it’s important
6. a specific time frame for an initial cleanup
7. a quick poll (that identifies responders) to track who’s going to help with the initial clean up
8. a second quick poll (that identifies responders) to track who is willing to adopt the taxon by subscribing to it to monitor/maintain it over time

For potential identifiers, if you see taxa that looks interesting, just indicate your interest in the appropriate quick poll, and start identifying over at iNaturalist.

Useful info for potential identifiers:

1. Here’s an article on identifying observations in iNaturalist: https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/getting+started#identify
2. Here’s a video tutorial for the Identify page: https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/video+tutorials#identify
3. On on the right side of the website homepage (https://www.inaturalist.org/home), there’s a Subscription section, with buttons to “Subscribe to a Taxon” and to “Subscribe to a Place”. “Subscribe to a Place” also allows you to subscribe to a taxon within a place.

If you have any ideas for taxa that you think would be good candidates for identification by non-experts or taxa that you would like help to figure out how to identify, this might be a good thread for discussing those kinds of things, too.

[pisum]

UPDATE: There’s been a taxon swap in iNaturalist. So everything that refers to Dracopis below should now refer to Rudbeckia sect. Dracopis instead, and everything that refers to D. amplexicaulis below should now refer to Rudbeckia amplexicaulis instead.

Help me identify Dracopis.

Dracopis is a monotypic genus in the aster/sunflower family (Asteraceae). Monotypic means that there is only one species in the genus – in this case, Dracopis amplexicaulis (Clasping Coneflower). Dracopis amplexicaulis is a charismatic flowering plant native in the United States from Central Texas east to Alabama and north to Kansas, flowering in the spring. It’s a great plant for native prairies/meadows and sunny gardens.

Taxon page: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/157178-Dracopis
Identify page: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?taxon_id=157178
Explore page: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&subview=grid&taxon_id=157178

Identification tasks:

1. Confirm ID on species-level Dracopis amplexicaulis observations. Here is a typical example: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/23213151. It has:
   a. alternating, clasping leaves (the bases of the leaves partially wrap around the stem).
   b. infloresences with a central cone-like structure (receptacle) that is usually greenish early on and becoming more purplish over time, with disc florets that are purple at the base and yellow at the tips
   c. (usually) 6-10 “petals” (ray florets) that are mostly yellow, with some red/purple at the base (near the cone)
   d. hairless (glabrous) green parts (if you see hairs, see Rudbeckia below)
   e. stature up about 1m tall (though some plants can be much smaller), with branched or simple stems
2. Take genus-level observations down to species level. (Remember, the genus contains only D. amplexicaulis.)
3. Kick out misidentified plants. Here are a couple commonly misidentified as Dracopis:
   a. Rudbeckia (ex. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/24162227). The leaves are not clasping. The most commonly confused plant is probably R. hirta, which will have very hairy green parts (vs hairless green parts in D. amplexicaulis). The cones of Rudbeckias tend to start off shorter and usually appear less green than those of Dracopis.
   b. Ratibida (ex. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/24004831). The leaves a very different (divided and not clasping) and cones are a little different (usually skinnier/longer, whiter).
4. As with other flowering plants, it will be helpful to also mark the “flowering” under the Plant Phenology Annotations, if the plant is flowering.
5. (extra points) Head over to Rudbeckia (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&subview=grid&taxon_id=62741 or https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?taxon_id=62742), and kick over any plants that look like Dracopis.

I’m planning to do a cleanup of the taxon 2019-05-05T05:00:00Z → 2019-05-06T05:00:00Z. I’ve already kicked out a lot of the misidentifications, but I could use help with confirming IDs. If you’re interested in helping me do this inital cleanup of the taxon, vote in the quick poll below:

• yes, I want to help
• no, I can’t help

If you’re interested interested in subscribing to the taxon and helping to maintain it over time, vote in the quick poll below:

• yes, I want to help
• no, I can’t help

Feel free to message me or post here if you have questions.

Other links:
BONAP range map: bonap.net/NAPA/TaxonMaps/Genus/County/Dracopis
FNA detailed description: www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=1&taxon_id=20734

[loarie]

This is very cool @pisum. As someone who is totally unfamiliar with this species but wants to help - two things I’d find useful would be:

1. a visual representation of your characters. I put this together when trying to learn the information in your notes. For me, there’s no substitute for someone pointing out these characters visually (let me know if I got anything wrong here)
   
   
2. a better handle on distribution. I took the liberty of making an Atlas for this species. Atlases can be useful for calling out observations that are way out of range
   https://www.inaturalist.org/atlases/20818

This was an interesting exercise for me to think about the most efficient way for helping someone with no experience in a species like me get up to speed to the point that they can help ID.

Curious what others think about how to best convey this information

[loarie]

Since the flower characters (ie yellow ray petals with red bases, yellow tipped disk flowers in a cone like structure) seem shared by quite a few Rudbeckia, I was mostly going on the clasping leaves, non-hairy stem characters. But I ran into @pisum’s comments on a few (ie https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/24085139) that suggest there could be other species ie Rudbeckia maxima with these clasping leaves, non-hairy stem characters.

I think this is the challenge we need to overcome in these conversations about training beginners to become experts capable of IDing. If this was a group I was familiar with, I’d probably be aware of Rudbeckia maxima and have amore complete sense of whats Rudbeckia amplexicaulis and whats not.

But in my noob-position, I have to be aware that IDing using a narrow understanding of a few characters without good context on the group, I might be causing more harm than good.

It would be fantastic to have some way of conveying information about all the possible things it could be confused with (I’m not sure if this is the entire genus Rudbeckia or what) and having tools - whether they be distribution based or character based to separate each alternative species.

Last thing that comes to mind is something @dkavanaugh told me which really resonates with me: even though we explain to people how to ID with characters, we as individuals recognize species more like we recognize friends (ie facial recognition). eg I don’t recognize my friends based on the number of freckles on their ears, I just recognize them by gestalt and then if someone forced me to ‘prove’ it I’d probably resort to some explanation that involves freckle placement. We’re in a similar situation with identifying species. Once we’re familiar with a species, we recognize them mostly by gestalt. But to teach and learn we have to figure out a way to communicate information until people are familiar enough for gestalt to kick in. Clearly characters are important here, but how best to convey all the sufficient information as efficiently as possible?

[pisum]

ok… good feedback. it makes sense that visual representations are probably easier to digest. so i’ll try that for the next installment. (i was trying to avoid it since i’m not working with a mouse, but i guess there’s just no substitute for doing it the right way.)

regarding R. maxima, yes, that was another shortcut that i took in this case. my thinking there was that i didn’t want to add another thing to think about if people would probably be unlikely to encounter it. the “up to 1m tall” characteristic was intended to cover the bases on R. maxima, which is typically much bigger. but maybe it’s better to more explicitly cover even unlikely cases in something like this? i’m not sure.

[arboretum_amy]

Help me distinguish Romneya–Fried Egg Flowers

Genus Romneya (ROM-nee-uh) in family Papaveraceae (Pah-pah-ver-AY-see-ay, the poppy family) contains only two species. Known as Matilija (in Spanish, mah-teel-EE-ha, although I hear English-speakers say mah-TIL-i-ha) poppies or Fried Egg Flowers, these large, sweet-smelling flowers consist of six crinkled, white, crape-paper-like petals surrounding a pom-pom center of deep golden stamens. A single petal can be 10 cm (4 in) long. They are the largest flowers in the poppy family, and the largest flower native to California. The state legislature of California nominated Romneya as one of the possibilities for state flower, but ultimately awarded the title to Eschscholzia cailifornica.

A Romneya coulteri bloom

A Romneya trichocalyx bloom

Romneya are large shrubs, up to 2.5 m (8 ft) tall, restricted in native range to southern California and northern Baja California. Small range, combined with the unique, memorable flowers, easily recognized by casual observer and AI alike, mean nearly all observations on iNaturalist labeled “Romneya” are correct to genus. Observations of the plant north of Santa Barbara county are cultivated (see maps in Jepson links below). The plant is cultivated all the way up to the top of Washington State, but difficult to obtain and grow outside the west coast, so observations elsewhere are definitively misidentified. Incorrectly labeled plants are most often white garden peonies, and sometimes white-flowered species of Argemone (a different poppy genus, with very prickly leaves, resembling those of thistles.)

The tricky part is splitting Romneya observations into the two species: Romneya coulteri, and Romneya trichocalyx. For definitive ID, the observation must include an in-focus and fairly close-up shot of an unopened flower bud, to see whether or not the outside of the bud is hairy. The buds of R. coulteri are always completely smooth/not hairy. The buds of R. trichocalyx are always hairy. In fact, the Latin name trichocalyx means “hairy bud,” from trichomes (botanical term for hairs) + calyx (the collection of green, leaf-like appendages enclosing a flower bud, also known as sepals.) When I change the ID on an iNat Romneya observation, I briefly explain this smooth bud/hairy bud distinction.

UPDATE: today I realized it may be possible for some people to confuse the seed pods for unopened flower buds, since the shape is a bit similar. Please look carefully, because the seed pods are hairy in both species!

No hairs on Romneya coulteri. This is also the wide-leaf form, as discussed below.

Hairs on Romneya trichocalyx. Don’t be distracted by the narrow leaves of this plant; see discussion below.

Wait, is that it? Just one characteristic, either hairy or not hairy flower buds?! Yes, that’s it. Or at least, the presence or absence of hairs on the flower buds is the only hardline rule and the easiest to capture in photos. There are other differences that vary a little more, and don’t make as good pictures, including:

• (NEW EDIT) Small hairs on the pedicle (flower stem where it meets the base of the petals), or on the leaves/bracts just under the flower. If you can see those in the image, then it’s R. trichocalyx.
• Flower bud shape: R. coulteri buds are often “beaked,” or strongly pointed on top, while R. trichocalyx flowers are often rounded/weakly pointed. This can be helpful for photos which are not in perfect focus, but I am not yet certain it is accurate in 100% of cases. I’ve seen some hairy buds that are pretty darn pointed on top.
• Petal and leaf size: R. coulteri petals and leaves are on average a little larger than those of R. trichocalyx, but given the amount of variation and overlap, I don’t find this helpful even when I have the plant in person, never mind in photos!
• Seed: R. coulteri seeds are dark brown and papillate (bumpy.) R. trichocalyx seeds are light brown and smooth. This is useful in person, but I haven’t seen anyone photograph the seeds for an iNat observation.
• Dubious distinction of leaf shape: Some people will tell you R. coulteri leaves have wide lobes, whereas R. trichocalyx leaves have skinny lobes, giving their leaves an overall look that is much more feathery and finely divided. I don’t find this true. While I have seen feathery, finely divided leaves on R. trichocalyx in cultivation (my photos were taken on cultivated plants,) I almost never see them on wild plants. I think leaf shape naturally varies, and perhaps someone even selected the finer leaves for R. trichocalyx plants available for cultivation. I could understand if a nursery worker wanted an easy way to tell unblooming plants apart.

Wide lobe leaf form

Narrow lobe leaf form

So what if the iNat observation is a nice headshot of a big white flower, and nothing else? If there aren’t any buds, or if the distance or focus of the buds is not adequate to see their hairs, genus Romneya might be as good as the ID can get. Lucky camera angle may allow you to see bristles on the pedicle and/or bracts, but often not. The flowers bloom April-June, so the next few weeks are a great time for observation clean-up. If you would like to help with clean-up, vote below:

• Yes, I want to help clean-up this genus.
• No, I am not interested.

If you would like to subscribe to maintain the taxa over time, vote below:

• Yes, I want to maintain the genus over time.
• No, I am not interested.

I would love to hear your questions or feedback. I do not consider myself a Romneya expert; for example I have no idea whether it is possible for the two species to hybridize, or whether some taxonomists might consider the two species to be one species, given their extreme similarity. What do you think? I do propagate/grow native plants for a living, so if anyone has cultivation questions about Romneya or other species, ask away (perhaps not on this thread, in effort to stick to topic.)

References/useful links:

Genus Romneya http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/eflora_display.php?tid=10836

Key to Romneya http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/get_IJM.pl?key=10836

R. coulteri http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/eflora_display.php?tid=41557

R. trichocalyx http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/eflora_display.php?tid=41558

Genus Romneya http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=1&taxon_id=128724

R. coulteri http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=1&taxon_id=220011716

R. trichocalyx http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=1&taxon_id=233501215

[pisum]

@mamestraconfigurata

My concern with this thread is that we seem to be reinventing keys which are already published.

the intent of the thread isn’t really to reinvent keys. the primary thing is to highlight taxa that non-experts would have a relatively good chance of identifying correctly, given a minimal set of instructions. we’re reinventing keys only to the extent that we’re pinpointing the specific things that really make a plant distinctive or providing additional easier-to-understand pictures or non-technical descriptions to complement existing keys – to make it as accessible as possible for non-experts.

[arboretum_amy]

@pisum

providing additional easier-to-understand pictures or non-technical descriptions

Yes! I feel that for the botanical layperson on iNaturalist, plant keys lack three things:

1. Pictues. If you are lucky, your key might have line drawings, but probably not for every plant. I get that keys were made to be carried around in printed form, and so many images isn’t practical for large books, but there’s a reason why casual plant enthusiasts depend on photo illustrated field guides rather than keys. Luckily iNat itself often solves this problem–the species photo pages are really great. I also heavily use the images on Calflora, since there you can display all the members of a genus on one page, three photos each. I don’t know where else people outside California can photos more reliable than Google images.
2. Easy language. Botanical jargon is super useful, but also overwhelming. I remember my mom looking at my Jepson manual (the book of keys and taxa descriptions most used for plants in California) and commenting, “This isn’t in English.” I want people to discover new and hopefully facinating plant details without realizing I’m slowly teaching them botanical jargon!
3. All keys assume you physically have the specimen in front of you. I bet this point comes up endlessly on iNat, but: identifying from photos is a whole different game. Definitely some species just can’t be IDed from general snapshots, but at least we on this thread have some sense of what useful info is or isn’t in the average observation photo.

[mamestraconfigurata]

I’d like to apologize to all above for my rater snarky last response. In my original post I was trying to reinforce the notion of gestalt, and how it is very important to moth ID (except for the advanced techniques like genetic dissection etc to establish species). I overreacted to the initial response, and regret doing that. Again, sorry.

Ian

[k2018lena]

One thing I would like as a non-expert wanting to help clear the non-identified backlog: it would be helpful to know some basic things that let me sort into the broader taxon levels to get them out of the generic “unknown” category. For example right now I feel like I can identify something as in the Asteraceae family if it is blooming. If I am wrong, it is way up the taxon so doesn’t risk sending something research grade that shouldn’t be, yet it might get the flower to someone who can identify it correctly without them having to wade through the “unknowns”. Are there some things experts recommend that may be hard to distinguish at the genus/species level but pretty easy to place in a higher taxon?

[upupa-epops]

Hi everyone,
Allograpta is a genus of hover flies with 2 species common in the US. At first glance they look pretty similar but I think after learning how to distinguish them they’re relatively easy from most observations. And there are a lot of observations of them as they’re very common.
The species are Allograpta obliqua and A. exotica. A. obliqua is common pretty much everywhere in North America, while A. exotica is common mostly in the southern half of the US (I think both are common in Central and South America, but there are lots of other Allograpta species there).

The most reliable feature to separate the 2 species is a section of the thorax called the katepimeron. In A. obliqua it is white, while in A. exotica it is black. It’s located about halfway between the base of the wings and the base of the middle and hind legs. It is marked with arrows in this image: https://bugguide.net/node/view/757809 (note that the face stripe mentioned there is not reliable for separating them)
Here are photos of each species as well to compare:
https://bugguide.net/node/view/1107106
https://bugguide.net/node/view/642078

Unfortunately most observations don’t show the katepimeron, but they almost always show the abdomen pattern. There are some features there that can generally be used to separate the species (copied from here):

1. 2 narrow yellow bands/triangles near the base of tergite 2 (basically the very base of the abdomen) narrowing out towards the centre (present in obliqua, absent in exotica so that the base of T2 is all black).

2. Narrow yellow band along the entire base of tergite 4 (obliqua has it, exotica does not).

3. The “leaf-shaped” spots on the side of tergite 4 are usually closer to parallel to the centre pair of stripes, whereas in exotica they are usually closer to 45* or more away from them (exotica also has these spots connected to the centre pair of stripes like this more often, but both can have that).

4. obliqua seems to often have more orangey-yellow stripes, whereas exotica often has more creamy or whiter yellow stripes.

That probably sounds complicated, but once you get an idea of what it looks like it’s not that bad. Just try to make sure most of those features are in alignment. The first image is a pretty clear A. obliqua, while the second one is a pretty clear A. exotica:

They are variable and there are some that are intermediate, but I think most are identifiable. You can get an idea of the variation possible within each species by looking through their image galleries:
Allograpta obliqua
Allograpta exotica

If you’re interested in helping identify these, here is a filter for all Needs ID observations of the genus in Canada and the US: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?taxon_id=118969&place_id=1%2C6712
If you want clarification on anything, please don’t hesitate to ask here or tag me in an observation. Feel free to skip over any that you’re not sure about.
Thank you!

• I am interested in helping!
• No thanks!

[sedgequeen]

@arboretum_amy

All keys assume you physically have the specimen in front of you. . . . identifying from photos is a whole different game.

So true, and frustrating! I teach classes in grass identification, which is challenging but is do-able with the specimen in hand. I find I can’t teach others how to ID grasses on iNaturalist (at least, so far). The photos are frustrating. Certain grasses can be ID’d by gestalt (general appearance) but for many, the gestalt gives you an idea and then you check on a certain detail to rule out other possibilities. (e.g., That’s one of the weedy annual barleys, so I’ll check the auricles to ID or rule out the most common species.) In most cases, the iNaturalist photos don’t include the needed details, even by accident. Or more accurately, they don’t include those details in good enough focus to assess.

Early in my iNaturalist days, I thought I’d straighten out the identification of many grasses. I’ve actually helped with some species (mostly Phleum pratense and the species mistaken for it – I have a list of over 50 such iNat errors) but mostly I look longingly at the observations, wishing one of them showed the needed detail. Sigh.

[jasonhernandez74]

…and now I understand why the Asteraceae get stuck there. It is because someone like me gets too frustrated with the sheer lack of confidence people have. I must have moved dozens of observations into American Asters. I mean sure, there are lots of confusing species, and I don’t know most of them either, but come on – I at least know that they are asters.

And how many observations did I see of foliage without flowers that could only be Sow-Thistles? Again, nothing wrong with leaving it at genus. Or for that matter, even if you don’t know the genus, if you see one that is really, really prickly, you are pretty safe in calling it Thistles and Allies, or even be a little bolder and say Thistles and Burdocks. Or, if you live in North America, how can you not know Black-Eyed Susan? Sure, there are other species of Rudbeckia, but those would only bump it back to genus, which isn’t that far.

What really floored me, though, were the number of Oxeye Daisy that were left at Asteraceae. I mean, it’s not like that is a rare or obscure species; it’s pretty much the quintessential daisy.

People lack confidence, and they hedge too much. It is as if they are so afraid of giving a wrong answer, they give an essentially useless answer instead. You can always correct it later if your notifications show that others have gone a different way with it.

I’ll keep at these a bit longer, but I’m getting discouraged by the above.

[wildskyflower]

I think there’s a tendency for many people, myself included, to largely avoid IDing to anything other than kingdom/phylum/class/order/family/genus/species, and for many asteraceae it is easiest to get to one of the tiers between family and genus. In fact, for me, one of the few exceptions when I’m clearing unknowns is I usually identify anything that looks remotely like a dandelion to Tribe Cichorieae. Possibly I could be more aggressive there, but there’s a fear of ‘you don’t know what you don’t know’. I like the idea of this thread in making a list of things I shouldn’t be afraid to ID to specifically.