@bouteloua @janetwright @sedgequeen I still have to disagree here. Though there are gradations and often few or no clear dividing lines for various levels of dormancy, identifying things at various stages, including dormant/dead instead of living/active, are usually very different processes. Also, the identification process of dead plants is similar to nearly identical to identification process for dormant plants (unless the plant died sterile, in which case there is little hope for any kind of ID). If you like, perhaps even completely dormant (no active above ground growth)/dead would provide the clearest distinction possible. There are multiple ways that we can try to group this to make it work, but I think there are ways to make this work. Just so we’re clear, my argument is for utility, not absolute data. Though this category might not be useful from a data perspective, it would be very useful from a data cleaning (i.e., identification) perspective even if improperly applied. For examples of this kind of information being utilized, I have project specifically devoted to providing references for ID of plants during the most challenging times of the year. I specifically use three observation fields to organize this information: Winter/Young Plant Type, Seedling?, and Evergreen. The first has the utilizes “only dead material visible”. Are the distinctions exact? Not at all. Are they useful categorizations? Absolutely. Lastly, I would argue that the distinction between dormant/dead and active/alive are actually no more arbitrary than the juvenile/adult values for life stages in animals.
I find these helpful in the case of dioecious plants. More selective implementation would be very nice, but I’d hate to get rid of it altogether.