(Northern Hemisphere) Fall is my least favorite time to ID plants on iNat because it means IDing thousands of blurry photos as Solidago Subgenus Pleiactila Section Unilaterales Subsection Trilinerviae. Turns out, all the most common goldenrods in the world require detail shots in order to be identified to species and boy is identifying them annoying!
Save your identifiers a headache by remembering to photograph these details every time you record a goldenrod:
The two most common goldenrods in the world are from my locale, so I feel obliged to help identify what I like to think of as “the embarrassing uncles” of my native plants. Currently on iNat, the top world species are Solidago canadensis at 67,502 observations and Solidago altissima at 55,410, though I do wonder how many of those are accurate. Here’s the ID sheet I made for them:
It’s interesting that the galls are a clue to species - I never knew that!
Question: In your illustration of Tall Goldenrod, the blowup circle for the leaf shows the underside being “hairy downy” but the blowup circle for the stem/leaf attachment seems to show the underside of a leaf being “rough hairless.”
If you’re looking for a project, you could have a look at the UK Solidagos. According to the British Floras we have the native Solidago virgaurea, Solidago canadensis (including Solidago altissima), Solidago canadensis, Solidago (Euthamia) graminifolia, very rare Solidago rugosa, and a single site for Solidago sempervirens. But it is possible that other taxa have escaped from gardens and have been overlooked.
There are 3,000+ observations in iNat. 1,400 are Solidago virgaurea and can probably be skipped on a first pass, leaving 1,200 and change of Solidago canadensis and Solidago gigantea, and a few hundred Solidago sp. (a substantial number of which will be Solidago virgaurea)
I love the spirit , but heck no. I made this post because I’m tired of trying to identify bad goldenrod observations, but deep respect to anyone out there who does want to go through tens of thousands of blurry yellow and green photos taken yards away from the plant. Honestly I’m getting to the point of marking all Solidago observations as Viewed so I can identify plants in peace. It’s definitely better for my blood pressure that way.
Here’s hoping for a future where more folks understand what photos you need for getting identifications! Be the change in Solidago photographs that you want to see in the world, and all that.
, but heck no. I made this post because I’m tired of trying to identify bad goldenrod observations, but deep respect to anyone out there who does want to go through tens of thousands of blurry yellow and green photos taken yards away from the plant. 