I understand the motivation to want cultivated/ornamental potted plants to be labeled as casual. I don’t like seeing those observations myself. But making a blanket statement to all users that all potted plants should be labeled as casual is dangerous (IMHO). Most gardeners, myself included, have had unwanted unintended plants pop up in a planted pot that was intended for something else. That is no different than an unintended plant growing in a flowerbed, a vegetable garden, grass lawn, or even a crack in the side walk. We call them weeds. If the wind (or a bird) can deposit a seed in a landscape pot, I don’t think that should be counted as casual. That’s my opinion. Thoughts?
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In my opinion this is a case here the onus is on the observer to provide additional information to make it clear what the situation is.
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Certainly, plants can sometimes come up unwanted even in pots. Nevertheless, I think:
- any unintended harm caused by a default position of marking potted plants as cultivated is less than the ongoing harm of so many actual cultivated plants being left as “wild”.
- the number of unintended potted plants seen on iNaturalist is vastly outweighed by the number of intentionally potted plants.
- as said above, the observer should provide the necessary details in the rarely uploaded cases where a potted plant is apparently not intentionally cultivated.
There is no statute of limitations for correcting the status of an observation. If something gets marked wrong, then go ahead and contribute your vote to fixing it.
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I work at a plant nursery and we get a lot of weeds within pots that I often post observations of.
The way I see it, I know what’s a weed and what isn’t; I know what was grown on purpose and what wasn’t; but other people, identifiers, don’t necessarily. It’s also probably just muscle memory to see a plant in a pot and then mark it casual.
My solution is to just pull the weed out and then photograph it. You’re probably going to pull it out anyway, so I think why not do that first? Add details as well, but I think trying to avoid the usual red flags that make an observation look cultivated will mean that people won’t just mark it casual without paying attention to those details.
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I identify a lot of potted plants and FWIW, I have a) seen weeds posted just few times, b) do not mark weeds as cultured if they occur in the region, c) it is usually very obvious if the plant is a wild weed or a captive plant, the exception is mainly pansies growing from seed in neglected balcony urns.
But, an important point: the most scientifically valuable data in iNaturalist observations is the locality, with the photos a distant second. That is why iNaturalist should err on the side of caution when it comes to captive specimens, since they otherwise “poison” the locality data.
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For my area, I know which weeds are commonly invading pots and garden beds. When identifying, or if I spot one of those while checking through casual observations for potential “rescues” back to RG, I will add a comment that it is a common weed and likely popped up on its own. As others have said though, it is up to the observer to confirm since they know best what they planted. I do a lot of wildflower gardening and have actually planted some things on purpose that others may consider weeds so you never know just looking at a picture that has no description or explanation added.
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Your reply reminds me that not all native plants growing out in the wild are actually Wild in the iNat sense, just to confuse matters even further. In my own yard, which is quite small and hardly has any wild areas, I’ve planted several natives that now look like they grew there naturally. The Striped Maple I planted on the edge of my hedgerow 20 years ago is now about 15 or 20 feet high and 3 or 4 inches DBH. In another 20 years, when I’m gone, will someone assume it’s Wild in the iNat sense?
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It’s interesting both on the planted natives and the escaping garden plants; there’s several species at home (Australia) that are 50/50 either way. The exclusively-coastal species are mostly easy to pick out as planted locationally, now that I understand their usual range, but others are more nuanced and messy… at some point i need to look through a particular species with a fine tooth comb because it’s a common public garden plant, a common restoration plantation (whether it should be or not), and a native species with a decent-size range!
And don’t forget the trees that might look planted due to the cultivated surrounds but are probably legitimate remnant bush.
Gazania in particular I’ve both named planted and disagreed to wild, and once I would have thought the observation wild but the explanation as to cultivated was reasonable. There’s usually a vibe to the cultivated individuals, but there’s always an edge case isn’t there?
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I agree! I have a salmonberry plant and a lot of random weeds that have volunteered in some neglected pots on my porch.
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Yeah this is a tricky (but very interesting) dynamic for identifiers as well. Where I live in Spain there are a lot of old hedgerows, farm plots, paths, etc. that were abandoned in the last hundred years. At first glance all the plants that grow in these areas seem ‘wild’, and they certainly have an important ecological role in supporting wild fauna (e.g. planted but naturalized cherry and apple trees can be an important food source for bears), yet there is no good way to tell whether they were originally planted or if they established themselves.
I’ve also been wondering about the inverse: when a ‘wild’ area is ‘developed’, sometimes specific natural features will be saved and then integrated into the new development (e.g. an impressive existing tree is left in a newly planted park). By iNat’s definition these individuals are ‘wild’ (they were not planted), but the fact that they still exist there is only because of human choice. An old tree that is surrounded by newly laid concrete and fences feels to me more ‘captive/cultivated’ than ‘wild’. I suppose it is somewhate equivalent to digging up a plant you find in the wild and stuffing it in a pot.
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By iNat’s definition that impressive old tree was born Wild - and remains so forever - despite the concrete and fences intruding.
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If the plant may be wild, I treat it as wild, knowing that if I mark it casual it will go to Casual hell. Examples: Douglas-firs in our mostly planted forests, wild plants in restored habitats. Odds are any individual plant was planted, but it might have gotten there on its own.
I do have an automatic tendency to mark plants in pots as cultivated, but it’s true that weeds also grow in pots. Often I can tell, but sometimes not.
And then there’s a Sweet Gum (Liquidambar styraciflua) that came up unexpectedly in a pot I’d planted with sedges. I’ve left it there (with the sedges). It’s still wild, I think. Certainly an edge case, though.
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Whether planted or wild-growing isn’t the only defining characteristic of the “captive/cultivated vs. wild” distinction. If it was a “weed” that sprouted in a pot, but the pot is being watered, fertilized, or otherwise tended to due to a true cultivated plant in the same pot it would be considered “captive/cultivated”. At least that’s my understanding?
Nevermind LOL, no idea where I got that from then.
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Did you actively plant the seed = Cultivated.
Is the ‘weed’ a volunteer = Wild.
Despite iNat calling Not Wild = Cultivated, their definition has nothing to do with small c cultivation of plants. If they would say what they mean = Not Wild, we would not have this confusion.
Generally captive or wild cares about the origin of the plant more. So if it was planted, versus it showed up on its own. This is also why plants that were originally planted never really ‘become’ wild, even if the property degrades and no one lives there anymore or sustains it. Restoration areas and transplanting can surpass this rule, depending on who you ask.
Most weeds are given benefits by humans, either directly or indirectly (watering, shade, and so on). It is too much of a splitting hairs situation to focus on whether a weed is getting artificial advantages or not. Exceptions might include something like a greenhouse, which could provide not just benefits but an entire “ecosystem” that is artificial. Some would still consider greenhouse weeds validly wild, though, due to the nature of their original appearance.
The point is: what is a POTTED plant? Is it just a plant growing in a pot. I would say no. It is a plant that has been deliberately put in a pot to be cultivated. Instead, pots may become a suitable place for wild species to grow, especially when the cultivated species dies out.
Uncultivated pots may also be useful to make an experiment: they can be left to see how many and which species start to grow there spontaneously.
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I started adding potted weeds that I identify to my favorites, but they took up too much room so I started a new project for them instead:
- Potted Weeds: Weedy plants in pots, planters, and ornamentally.
The captive/wild question is so ambiguous as shown in many forum posts, but if you come across any such plants, please add them to the project. It’s fun to see what kinds of weedy plants end up in cultivation.
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There’s a difference between potted plants and plants in pots.
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