I want to learn more about taxonomy, but I’m not a biologist and know only basic things. I find myself often tagging “Plantae” on unknown… but I really want to learn ! I’m a bit confused on how though… is there a method or a usual way to go about it ? It feels really intimidating right now ! I don’…

[image] sedgequeen: It’s very useful to go out in the field with other people interested in nature. You may find groups near you for people interested in birds, native plants, weeds, fishing, etc. Attend some meetings and especially field trips. I would love that ! but I’m in a fairly rural a…

I feel your difficulty! For years I lived on a farm 40 miles from the nearest nature-oriented meetings. Making contacts was difficult. Nothing like the difficulty connecting that many rural people face, though!

Personally, I learn from a variety of places regardless of topic. I, too, am learning taxas/taxons. I have most basics down for being able to move observations (obs) out of Unknowns, but wish to be able to identify lower. It is frustrating at times. Three things I think help me are/would be: Field…

[image] lizaeckardt: If I want to learn more about breaking plants into the next level I also use the taxonomy tab to see how which bit fits where in the taxonomy. I chose the wrong Family, can I remember the right one next time ?

[image] phma: A plant does not have to have flowers when observed to be a flowering plant. And the next step is to tell whether it’s a monocot or a dicot. I think you misinterpreted the post by @AdamWargon - I also misread it the first time through. I think he is suggesting that annotating pl…

IME plant families are much more difficult to identify than animal ones. There are some that are immediately recognizable, like Asteraceae (composites) and Fabaceae (legumes), but most are defined based on minute characters like the number and placement of ovules in the flower and development of the…

[image] kmagnacca: IME plant families are much more difficult to identify than animal ones I think there are around 400,000 vascular plant species, compared to around 20,000 terrestrial vertebrate species? So there are around 20 times more plants than animals, in the way that non-iNatters de…

hehe thanks ! I made quite a dent on the ‘unknown” in Québec, now trying to id (when I’m sure) the angiosperm (mono or dico) it’s basic but I think of it as a form of training :)

Also: Field identification of the 50 most common plant families in temperate regions https://plants.sdsu.edu/plantsystematics/studentresources/Struwe_50MajorTempPlantFamilies2016.pdf

Learning taxonomy for newbie

Nature Talk

DianaStuder January 2, 2026, 12:15am 23

Plant families (with Cape eyes) a beginner’s guide

Topic		Replies	Views
Resources for IDing unknown specimen Nature Talk question	21	658	August 15, 2024
How do you expand your knowledge of different taxa? Nature Talk question	41	2685	September 1, 2022
Overthinking plant identification General	28	4792	March 30, 2021
Experienced taxonomists, how did you managed to become one? Nature Talk question	15	2178	December 2, 2022
Help me identify (non-experts welcome) General	69	8533	April 5, 2023

Learning taxonomy for newbie

Related topics