That’s so great that you guys over there ID your flora. Flora is new to me, and so far I am quite disappointed in the lack of confirmed IDs for flora observations posted from here in the United States. I wish we could ID it all the way you do in Africa. What is it that you Africans do that results in all of your flora observations getting identified? Is it something that we could try to implement here in the US so that obs don’t just sit there rotting for weeks, months, or years?
The US and Africa seem pretty much the same, US marginally ahead - I put an approximate box over both and got the following RG/Any for plants -
Africa 58.5% RG
US 59.5% RG
Obviously that doesn’t tell you how well they’ve been RG’d or whether they are easier or trickier in one or the other place.
You are looking at a HUGE difference in the number of obs. iNat started in USA and remains heavily skewed that way. That means you have many more waiting in Needs ID. And the residue of blurry, mis-click, not enough field marks is also huge.
But you also have many more universities, scientists, taxon specialists. And everywhere needs more iNatters to ID more. I am still working to clear the residue from City Nature Challenge in April.
Oh wow … I guess Africa is not ahead of the US after all, in a general sense, but according to what Diana wrote, they seem to be exceptional at flora. And flora is my problem. The fauna (mammals and birds) get identified rather reliably here, but the flora … a different story altogether. Even professional botanists and naturalists have loads of observations of flora with very clear photos, that just sit and rot for years and never get identified. We definitely do have a problem here in the US with plants not getting identified. Would love to know what the folks in Africa are doing to ensure that so many of their kingdom Plantae observations get properly identified, because if we found out what they are doing so right, then we could implement that here and get many more of our plants to Research Grade, so that they will actually be of use to those doing research.
I’m not sure a comparison can be made.
If the RG rate differed it still wouldn’t help, because it could be - for example - that the US experts really study plants deeply in their universities with microscopes and genetics and spot new species that are very hard to differentiate by field botanists or particularly iNat photos (a problem in Turkey is the insufficiency of iNat photos that are posted), whereas suppose in Africa plants have not been researched to the same precision but are designated using older flora that assess things by physical appearance not microscopy/genetics, then plants would automatically be easier to differentiate in Africa, until they might be given that same precision of treatment.
On the other hand, maybe Africans like plants more and are more in tune with recognising them, but in the US there’s more specialisation with interest in studying insects and birds that draws away from plants.
Many other aspects contribute to the question.
Given they have the same % RG rate for plants, I wouldn’t be thinking one as more progressed than the other, but I think in a given area it might be interesting to see whether a country has a higher RG rate in plants, insects, or something else, just not to compare countries, as I don’t think that works.
? that country called Africa 
Back on topic you can compare taxon group vs continents on each CV update blog post - https://www.inaturalist.org/blog/132916-the-new-computer-vision-and-geomodel-has-over-120-000-taxa
There are about 815 bird species in North America. There are almost 4000 vascular plant species just in Oregon (plus lots of mosses, etc.) Of course many plant observations go unidentified.
Universities usually have more professors studying animals than plants (sometimes about an equal number). And of course many of those people are not researching or teaching the natural history skills necessary for identification. Right now the botany professors who can ID diverse plants well are retiring or dying. Obviously, the slack in ID skills must be made up by non-academics.
Many non-academics aren’t interested. While most people find a bird at least mildly interesting if they see it, most people suffer “plant blindness,” seeing most plants as a general green blur occasionally interrupted by colorful flowers. Plus trees of course, which are easily identified as “trees.” Hmm. Birds, herps, fish, butterflies and native plants all have their passionate amateur followers, but there’s more basic appreciation of the animals.
Most U.S. states have a department of Fish and Wildlife and a department of Forestry, often in an Agriculture department that takes care of weeds. They shoehorn native herbaceous plants in there somewhere. (More recently many states have developed a Department of Conservation with a broader responsibilities.) Much of the professional support for plant identification comes from the legal requirement for environmental surveys for many projects. Good, but the need is great.
It’s really amazing that plant identifications are happening as often as they are.
This reminds me of a botany professor I knew who would rant about this. People give babies stuffed animals, but who ever gives them a potted plant? Older kids get plastic dinosaurs but never toy plants. It’s all just so unfair.
There’s a “tourist” mindset in the modern world that causes people to know more about a foreign city than their own village, to know about lions and tigers but not their own local animals, and so on; combined with the modern insistent world of distractions compared to a past where not much happened, it doesn’t help with the need to focus, learn and discriminate. In the past I guess people would often draw and paint the nature around them and so be forced to spot details, now you just scroll it speedily down the screen…
Children don’t even walk to school anymore. I observed a lot, especially in the first few years when my daily route to and from school took me past what later became a nature reserve. In those bygone days, children were told to get out of the house, and we did, roaming the woods, fields and creeks in all seasons and all weather.
sedgequeen wrote:
“While most people find a bird at least mildly interesting if they see it, most people suffer “plant blindness,” seeing most plants as a general green blur occasionally interrupted by colorful flowers.”
Yes, this is quite true. I realized this in myself. I had been that way for most of my life.
But it wasn’t that I had no interest in plants … rather it seemed that I could “just learn” most of the birds and mammals and herps, with very little effort. See one, see what it is named, and then that info was fixed in my mind for life.
But with plants, I would see a gazillion plants, and none of them screamed out, “I am so freaking cool looking that you just gotta go learn all about me.” And so even if I did manage to find out what a plant was called, a day or two later I would completely forget. I would notice plants a little, but actually learning about them seemed like something that would require an actual conscious effort. And I have never been a conscious effort person. I learn lots and lots of things, but they are all the things that I “just learn” without even trying to learn. Things that my brain just sucks up and doesn’t let go of, because they are just iconic things.
But over the past couple of months I am actually trying to learn plants. When I am afield, I take time to photograph a plant if I see one that catches my eye. I mean I will spend anywhere from 3 to 30 minutes with the plant, trying to get the best photo I can. And then when I get home I edit the photos and post them on iNaturalist, and see what genus they most likely belong to, and then hope that someone (an expert, hopefully) will suggest a species level identification. Then, once I know what the plant is, I will Google it and read about it on Wikipedia and look at that species’ range map to see where it is supposed to live indigenously.
So by doing these things I am trying to become a more complete naturalist, and hope to build at least a modicum of plant knowledge. At least for the species that “look cool” or that are of extremely high value to the birds and mammals and herps and butterflies that I enjoy so much.
I’m amused that these 11 or 12 posts were split off into a new topic and then given a title that makes only the first 6 on-topic.
Tom, I think you answered your own question! :) I was IDing pied wagtails for a while and got really into the subspecies, then I realised that I needed to know much more about inter-breeding, and that’s when I gave up on wagtails 
I can’t speak for the entire continent of Africa, but in the Cape the floral kingdom is incredibly diverse and well-studied and documented, while in northern Zimbabwe, there are local experts in trees but far fewer scientists dedicated to the field. My father knows an enormous number of Zimbabwean trees, so I usually send queries his way, but often these trees aren’t well-known amongst the people on iNat, or by the CV, or just in general. And then you get further north to Benin and Rwanda and Mauritania, and there’s almost nobody who observes or identifies on iNat.
So it isn’t possible to say that Africans (remembering that this is an entire and very big continent) are better than Americans at getting obs to RG, and the numbers back this up.
For trees in Northern Zimbabwe you can also ask @troos, but perhaps he is already on your list ?
No, he isn’t, thanks Diana!
When I started to learn plants (or dragonflies or moths or freshwater mussels or liverworts or whatever), I bought a wildflower field guide for my region and read it. OK, I read the introductory material and then turned the pages and admired the pretty flowers. It’s the kind of wildflower book that has a key which includes leaf shapes, not just flower color (Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide, if you’re interested in eastern North America; I still have my 50-year-old copy, literally within arm’s reach). Then I’d go for a walk with the book and write down - actually write on a piece of paper - what I found.
I am very lucky to live where I could take classes and go on field trips through the Native Plant Trust (formerly the New England Wildflower Society). Through them, I learned about field guides for ferns, trees, and shrubs, plus technical manuals for all New England flora. Of course, I bought and read them. And my world of resources - experts, classes, more and more literature - just keeps expanding.
My point in this saga is to say that, with plants, it often helps to know the general characters you’re looking for before you go out in the field. Look for how many petals there are in a flower, how many pine needles in a bunch, whether the fern is clumped or creeping, are the tendrils between every grape leaf on a vine or just every third one, and so on forever. (Yes, my brain is way too full.)
Come to think about it, well back in the last century when I was learning birds and mammals, there, too, it helped to know some general characters to look for - is the bird smaller than a robin or larger than a crow? What habitat is it in? Is its flight steady or does it flap-flap-glide? Does the head project well beyond the wings in flight or is it relatively small?
Spending lots of time in the field is the single best way to learn plants or any organism. But if you want to know what people have named an organism, it helps to learn how people have organized their thoughts on names, not by reading obscure technical literature (at least not in the beginning), but by reading field guides and referring to them often. (Assuming you’re lucky enough to live where they are field guides!)
Thank you for your so-nicely-written reply! I have field guides for birds, but have a touch of attention deficit (but only in certain areas), so I don’t always have the inclination to exercise the focus required to page through them and compare one species with another. I actually find that field guides for North American birds can make good collector’s pieces! Guides from the middle 20th century are often really cool looking, as the fonts and graphic stylizing in that era was unique and often beautiful. If there were good field guides for herps in that era, I would love to acquire some of them - another collection to build!