I am literally begging the identifiers out there: please mark observations as cultivated while you are identifying them.
I identify lots of conifers, and I have marked thousands of research grade plants cultivated. It is usually very clear too as most are in lawns, garden beds, obvious plantations, or are planted as a street tree. Once those observations are made research grade the chances of them getting reviewed again drop significantly, and it’s likely that no one will ever notice that they are not actually wild. For example, I have marked previously research grade observations of roughly 1,400 White Pine, 1,200 Norway Spruce, and 330 Northern Whitecedar in Ohio cultivated. These false research grades severely distort the species’ distribution maps, and if the original identifier had just marked it cultivated when they saw it this would not be nearly as big of a problem now. It’s especially problematic for species like Norway Spruce, Austrian Pine, and Scots Pine which are becoming invasive and need to have accurate maps of where they are escaping. Marking all of these observations as cultivated doesn’t have to be a time consuming process either, as in the identify feature you can simply use the keyboard shortcut ‘x’ to mark as cultivated.
Anyways, just thought I’d put out a friendly reminder!
I was just thinking the same today, going through tons of RG houseplant and ornamental shrub observations—identifiers, please just click x on that Aloe vera growing in a pot after you add your ID!
One fun way to get rid of falsely reported wild species in a given area is to look up the nearest botanical garden and see how many plants were uploaded as wild there. Think I removed 10 species from the Nova Scotia species count that way one week.
I find that easier than looking up specific garden plants.
Lots of people have asked us to do this before, and it will come up again. Theoretically, it’s great to mark observations of cultivated plants as Cultivated! However, if we do that before the observation gets a reasonably good ID it probably never will, because it will go to Casual, a cesspit few of us have the nerve to explore. This is a problem for the observer, who wanted an ID (and who we want to encourage to use iNaturalist). So I won’t consistently mark them Cultivated until Cultivated is separated from Casual.
Note: I do mark observations “Cultivated” if they have reasonably good ID’s or if I think they probably can’t be ID’d any better than they are. Sometimes I mark them “Cultivated” with a request for the observer to comment if they’re wild. I do eventually get ruthless with CNC observations from La Paz and with out-of-focus shrubs from class projects in the U.S. And fortunately for you, I ID relatively few conifers, fewer yet in Ohio.
So this morning I observed acorn-type seeds which appeared to me to be from a nearby coconut palm; we are currently having strong winds due to the arrival of a frente frio. The software automatically marked it as Cultivated, and while I have no doubt the palm is; I countervoted it as wild, since my Observation was of the seeds, not the palm, and those seem to me to be not cultivated, since they fell where they wanted on their own. (In fact I removed them since I did NOT want them growing where they fell.)
But now, reading this thread, I am, of course, more confused than ever, and do not wish to be thought to be trying to do something disingenuous. Are the seeds wild or not wild? Here is the Observation.
Also, if there’s an observation that’s a super obvious copyright violation (ie, a screenshot of the google images search page for the word “lion” with the entire search bar still showing) please PLEASE do not add an identification, and just flag it for copyright…
Yes, I do this too on occasion. Another good area to look is school/college campuses: usually highly tended grounds coupled with many new/duress/inactive observers (as said above, it’s good to add a note if they’re new!).
I give an ID, then mark cultivated. Depending on the observer (by that I mean, new users I leave the comment, more experienced users I generally don’t), I leave this comment:
“I’ve marked this as cultivated because it appears to be growing in a garden. If I’m wrong, leave a comment and I’ll change that.”
I do this because I used to ask, “Is this growing wild, or growing in a garden?” and most people never answered. So now I mark it, and then reverse it if I get it wrong.
I do think it is polite to give an ID before marking cultivated, particularly for new users. I know that there are others who think differently, and just mark cultivated and leave the observation as an unknown. We are never going to all agree on how things should be done. And possibly no-one is going to change their approach based on requests on the forum.
The little fruit, some with tiny leaves - are still part of the mother plant - which is planted and Not Wild.
If you would, let them grow where they fall - those sturdy plants would be Wild in your garden.
There is a coconut waiting in my kitchen (to be eaten). Trying to get my head around, that fruit, would produce a seedling from the soft eye. But but but where is the tiny embryonic plant?? Husk, shell and fruit flesh.
Oh yeah schools definitely post the most of these. At least after a certain amount get marked cultivated, iNat starts automatically marking future ones.
Like some of you, I will leave a comment like “cultivated plants such as this species X should be marked Not Wild”, but only if the user is still active. (It takes a brief second to check the user’s status, but I’m not in a hurry, so I always do.)
Often a user with one photo of an obviously cultivated plant will have many others, so I like to go through their other observations to weed out the rest of them. For long-gone users, I don’t bother to make an ID or leave a comment, just mark cultivated, without hesitation.
I get satisfaction from getting as many of those as possible out of the “needs ID” pile.
One caveat: not everything growing in a pot outdoors is cultivated. Nature abhors a vacuum, so every old pot will have random things growing in it. I couldn’t tell you what used to be growing in any of mine… they’re all just a collection of “weeds” now.
I do not know enough about coconut tree reproduction to fill two lines, but the tree these came from is full of coconuts, the green smooth kind. If left alone, they turn brown and fall eventually. I think what I photographed is the tiny embryonic plant. Could it be that when they fall, the juice and meat from the coconuts is used to “feed the seed”?
Just an idea, likely wrong, and as I will keep picking up coconuts, seeds, and fronds that fall, I am unlikely to be the one to learn otherwise.
My message to the observer when I find an unmarked cultivated plant:
Did you know that scientists use iNaturalist observations to study the range of where plants CAN grow (with cultivation help from humans) and where they grow wild (with absolutely no help from humans)?
You can make your observations more useful for science if you consistently mark all plants that receive help from humans as “Captive/Cultivated”. Simply check the correct Captive/Cultivated box before you submit your observation. If you can’t find the box, write “Cultivated” or “Not wild” as a comment with your identification.
In general, you should probably mark the following types of plants as “Cultivated”:
–Plants in planters
–Plants in gardens (unless they are weeds)
–Flowers, bushes or ornamental trees in front of houses
–Street trees in urban areas
–Flowers, bushes, or trees in public parks surrounded by mowed grass
Of course, weeds, weed trees, and other unintended plants are wild plants. Wild plants should NOT be marked “Cultivated”. In fact, wild unintended plants are great to look for—they may be hard to find in the city, but they are the most interesting ones of all since they grow without our help.
Many newish users thank me for this message because they didn’t know. Today I came across an observer with several thousand unmarked cultivated plants. No identifier before me ever clued the observer in about how to use the cultivated marker.
100% agree with @sedgequeen on this. It’s valid for observations of animals in the wildlife trade as well, whereas though the animal may be wild, its location has been moved but still needs to be ID’d. I just leave a comment to not mark it Captive until it’s reasonable identified. I won’t mark them Captive until Captive is distinct from Casual.
There should be some sort of system to “nominate” a species (such as the conifers mentioned in the original post) as being automatically assumed cultivated for a given state. It is unreasonable to expect people to clean up the 1,000s of observations in this manner.
Whatever system there currently is clearly insufficient and unsustainable for these purposes. Even if it’s native to the state, that’s fine: Anything over the 50% cultivated threshold should be considered fair game to automatically set to “cultivated” unless marked otherwise.