Good points. I just thought there might be people with sufficient knowledge to recognize these on sight. Also, at first I was saying to myself, “surely that’s not an Opuntia,” so it might help move some things to genus. Thanks, as always!
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One of the rewards - finding something to make a Kew botanist happy. And a second obs for iNat.
Interesting! A new one for me
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In Africa the percentage of cells with at least 1,000 observations is much lower (14%)
https://www.inaturalist.org/posts/82561-150-000-000-observations-on-inaturalist
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So, I contributed. I didn’t think I knew anything about African plants, but I decided to try. I went through part of the Unknown bucket, until I got to thousands of observations by one observer of single photos of trees at a distance, and then moved on to Kingdom Plantae. I looked through half of those. I decided not to mark as dicots, although I could have, but instead looked for observations I could be sure were either conifers or monocots, and some I could take to family. Although 99+% I simply passed over, the success stories are that I recognized several as palms, and set them to the palm family. Within 24 hours, those were taken to species by the palm people. I recognized some as aloes; let’s see if the aloes are taken to species. I also recognized several that I know as houseplants, such as a ZZ plant. It was exciting to recognize them and see them in their own habitats after knowing them in a totally different context. All in all, it was a very minor dent in the numbers, but still an effort that expanded my horizons and perhaps helped someone or helped in some small way with the overall effort.
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I love seeing things go from my general ID to a specific one!
IDs do move from Dicots to narrower taxa. Which doesn’t mean you should work on that if you don’t want to. I’m just here to testify that it makes a difference.
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It wasn’t clear that IDing to dicot is a good thing. There are other threads where people have said, don’t ID to dicot for African plants, because botanists there get annoyed (I’ll look up and add a link if I have time later). But, earlier in this thread, I think Diana suggested that for this effort, it would be OK. I wonder if this could be clarified. I actually found it difficult to find the information about what etiquette to follow for this project - perhaps someone could clarify this.
There you can already see why Tony Rebelo asks for - take it to family so taxon specialists can filter for it. Your lived experience on your first attempt.
I am haunted by 4 year old obs, when I was new here, and dutifully did the planty thing. Still quarantined in limbo where nobody sees them.
Focus on where you can make a difference. It is hugely appreciated!
It’s funny that you used the same example I used to a friend one time about helping with the Hong Kong schools challenge. Coming in from another continent it’s like being a “remote docent”, helping a lot of kids find out, “it’s a palm, that’s a palm too”.
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They are not quarantined, Diana.
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I just haven’t gotten around to them yet. ;)
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Honest Unknowns get identified.
Taxon specialists filter to family. As @gordonh has proved.
You have seen my 4 year old IDs to Plantae. Only released from quarantine by @lotteryd and our Mission Impossible. We make progress.
The group of observations labeled Plantae is smaller than the griup that is Uncategorized, and is all ready for plant IDers to review.
The Uncategorized bucket includes a wide variety of posts for IDers to wade through.
As Gordon noted above, he gave up on Unknown and moved to Plantae. There’s a lesson in that. I don’t think the lesson is to leave observations in unknown if you can’t ID to family.
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OK, but as a stranger lost in the vast savannahs of Africa, I felt some need for guidance. However, it has been said on this forum that ID’ing to Plantae is not good for “places like Africa” where botanists are overwhelmed. ID’ing to dicot was said to be the same problem. I could do it if I knew this was the protocol.
When I’m ID’ing these plants, it feels like I’m out of my depth and alone, so I hesitate to do something like review and move hundreds or thousands of observations of Unknowns to dicots, if it feels like I’m the only one doing it. If we all agree, then I would happily do it.
One reason I hesitate so much is because of previous discussions like this, that specifically called for exceptions to the general procedure for Africa due to the volume of unknown and volume of higher-level IDs:
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/why-are-some-accounts-adding-super-high-level-ids-to-my-unknown-observations/34286/44
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It seems to be a repeating cycle. African gatekeepers “don’t allow” IDs except when they meet special African rules. Then there’s a request for ID help every year or two. Experienced IDers not familiar with special African rules are ill-treated, as are new IDers looking to help and learn.
In what other location does the iNat community tolerate a new IDer’s contribution being called “useless”?
Enough. End this madness!
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Primary Mission:
GO FOR IT NOW EVERYBODY
In Africa
For science!
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Do they not see the cause-and-effect?
Currently I identify in the “Phylum through Class” section. And whenever I can give a small improvement, I do that. Even if it is only from Tracheophyta to Angiospermae (happens rarely) or to Magnoliopsida (most often).
Also that latter little improvement wakes sometimes the original contributor up who has now a better knowledge of the plants and can provide an id at genus or species level.
When it comes to ids at order or family level, further ids are quite rare (except for some observers who click “agree” on everything, but that’s a topic discussed elsewhere); fortunately among those rare occasions, my id was generally found correct, and occasionally lead to a “research grade” id.
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hey guys. I want to encourage calm and camaraderie here. Now, I have my own opinion on the matter, but the forums are not the place to bicker. and this thread in particular is meant to be a celebration of our cooperative effort.
if there is an individual you find particularly troublesome, you can always block them for the duration of the project.
(ok putting my mod hat back down)
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Keeping it positive
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/flora-of-africa/journal/82843-making-meaningful-identifications
There are a few dedicated links to families, where you may be able to help move them along.
I will persevere with the African Pre-Mavericks … where I can nudge them along.
When I look at @koos_the_reader 's graphs, the slice I would find most interesting is moving broad planty IDs to family. I suspect that genus and species have already mostly been seen by their taxon specialists. But then I see a new taxon specialist on iNat, and another slice moves briskly along! I wonder where the numbers will be after this last week in August??
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I work that “Phylum to Class” category fairly often. I’m identifying to “Dicot” a lot for this project, because at the level “Flowering Plant” or below I can annotate plant phenology. And usually Dicot (occasionally monocot) is usually the best I can do.
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