So, the backstory: I have some kind of marigold volunteering in my front garden at the moment, it looks very similar to a marigold my friend gave me a few years ago that I’d planted in the back garden when she gave it to me. The back garden is a considerable ways from my front yard. Unfortunately the one she gifted me perished and I was very confused to see a marigold popping up in front as I didn’t plant any this year and took a picture with Seek to make sure it was, in fact, a marigold. (Seek came back with T. erecta but as I’m always unsure of the accuracy so I knocked it back to just Tagetes before posting.)
So all that leading up to my actual question: because this flower (which I believe to be the same as the marigold my friend gave me) is not popping up in the place I planted it and it’s doing so years later, I didn’t mark it as captive/cultivated but I came back to the observation to see that somebody had done so, and I did give a general idea of the fact that it had decided to move itself someplace else in the notes… so I’m looking for clarification on the exact definition of wild versus captive/cultivated.
Is it cultivated because it’s a species that was introduced on purpose despite having traveled a short distance from its original location? Is it captive because it’s still in my yard? Did they just not read the notes and I should counter their “is it wild?” thumbs down with a thumbs up?
I’m still pretty green at this so any insght on how to better tag my observations is helpful. Thanks in advance :)
The idea behind the “cultivated” tag is to distinguish plants in natural locations from those that are due to human intervention.
While this is definitely a spectrum with a grey area, generally any plant that volunteers itself in a flower garden (even jumping from one garden spot to another) is considered reasonably “cultivated” (assuming the species isn’t just general garden weed that could show up anywhere).
Think of the garden like an aquarium: Any fish you have in it is “captive”, even if the fish make new babies, and even if those new babies move to another part of the tank.
My only qualm is that it’s not within the same garden, just on the same property. I would say it moved probably about 75-80 ft from its original location into a garden on the other side of the house.
Would this still be the same tank or would this be like if I had two fish tanks and a fish jumped from one into the other?
A fish jumping from one tank to another is a good way of putting it.
And although it sounds a little silly, from the plant’s perspective it’s not strange at all. Unlike a fish jumping from tank to tank, most plant’s seeds are well-adapted to travel distances like the one you described, whether by wind, water or animal dispersal. From the plant’s perspective, a garden separated by 80 feet may as well be the same garden.
While I agree that this is a gray area, I have a different understanding, and I tend to apply a more liberal definition of “wild“ when uploading and reviewing plant observations.
plants that grew from seeds that were planted in the ground or scattered
Wild
weed or other unintended plant growing in a garden
the descendants of plants that had been planted by humans
garden plant that is reproducing on its own and spreading outside of the intended gardening area
From the examples provided here, I think the marigold you are seeing would qualify as “not cultivated” if you are positive it is not grown from a seed planted or scattered by a human (for plants that spread via stolons or other vegetative structures, it’s often hard to tell if it is part of the same plant). The last example of “spreading outside of the intended gardening area“ is a little ambiguous, and I’ve seen people disagree on the interpretation of it.
If you upload a plant you know dispersed from a cultivated plot rather than an established population, it is a good idea to add annotations or observation fields that make it clear the observation is not part of an established population.
All this being said, as someone who often reviews observations of commonly cultivated plant species in my area, I would likely mark an observation of a marigold in a garden as cultivated, unless there is a note explaining why you are convinced it is not cultivated. Even then, others who review these observations may have a more stringent view and mark it cultivated, particularly if it is still in a garden.
I disagree, and I don’t think your view is necessarily the general opinion on iNat.
As quoted by okbirdman above, the help page gives “unintended plant growing in a garden” as an example of a wild observation. A more detailed example in the same help page says “garden plant that is reproducing on its own and spreading outside of the intended gardening area” - which sounds like an exact match for the marigold wandering_shr00m found in a place they never intended to grow it. The fact that the surrounding environment happens to be owned by someone or be close to a house doesn’t have any inherent bearing on whether it was cultivated on purpose. A garden could be left untended for decades and end up filled with a completely wild and uncontrolled ecosystem. And conversely, OP could have deliberately scattered seeds from the marigold in a road verge just outside their garden, which would make those seedlings cultivated despite their location.
@wandering_shr00m, as you can see it’s a complicated question with no easy answer. I’d encourage you to take a look at the help page, and make your own judgment about which definition your observation fits. If you disagree with someone else’s vote it’s fine to vote against them. If you think they may have actually missed some significant information (like your notes, or something that’s visible in one of the photos), it’s also fine to tag them in a comment to invite them to discuss it.
Volunteer plants are ‘wild’ by iNat rules, but sometimes people who are going through lots of observations go into autopilot mode and miss the notes - I’ve certainly been guilty of that myself!
Given your explanation this (new) plant is Wild by iNat’s definition. Counter the ‘not Wild’ vote with your own (but I told you I didn’t plant this one!)
For plants, my interpretation is that if the individual plant was not planted by a human, the plant is wild regardless of popping up 1 foot or 200 miles away. It doesn’t matter if humans take care of escapees or wild plants.
If you know where to look, you can even find escaped plants in botanical gardens and greenhouses!
If all cultivated breeding was marked as “Captive”, then most reintroduction projects that have completely succeeded with all original plants dead would be marked Captive, which just feels wrong.
This does sound like a bit of a gray area, but I would probably err on the side of “Wild” here since the individual does seem to meet the definition of sprouting outside of the intended gardening area (even if it is another gardening area) based on the distance that you cited. The only reason I might consider a plant like this as “Not Wild” is if it is only surviving in its new location because of human intention. For instance, if a human has been watering/fertilizing/weeding around the individual to keep it alive (and the plant would likely not have survived without this intervention).
NB: I’ve updated the title from “flag” to “DQA” since flags are something else on iNat.