Matricaria discoidea (Pineapple Weed) is described as “Native to Canada” on its iNat page, but I checked a bunch of observations of it across Canada٭ and they all have that pink exclamation point saying it’s introduced in that area. So what’s its native range?
I found this forum thread that describes how the situation is a bit of a mess.
Is there any way to improve this?
Does anyone have access to sources that document any part of the actual native range of this plant? E.g. the ones cited in the above forum thread (E. McClintock 1993b; E. G. Voss 1972–1996, vol. 3; A. Cronquist 1994)?
٭ including a bunch of observations around BC, which is where Canadensys says it’s from!
If you ever want to find the native range or introduced ranges for a plant search the species name on google something like “Matricaria discoidea Kew”. That will take you to the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens website where it lists not only the distribution of the species, but also taxonomic synonyms.
I’ve found the Kew website to be very good for finding species distributions as it not only lists the distribution, but it also separates the native and introduced countries.
I think I’ve fixed the issue. Looks like there’s a bunch of cross-border geographical “places” that it was pulling the status from, rather than the Canada checklist.
Hmm yeah, the AC CDC lists Matricaria discoidea as “exotic” in NS, NB and PEI (I’d check NL/Labrador too, but that appears to require emailing someone to get the data). So it disagrees with Kew. Which is more likely to be correct? How does that get figured out/decided?
I’d personally pick ACCDC. They’re a local group based in New Brunswick. Kew’s a bunch of folks from overseas who would presumably rely on local data sources such as ACCDC.
THAT SAID, Kew is the more internationally recognized institution. I just don’t think they spend much time here.