Huh, that’s clever! Maybe I should try that title out.
How do you search for observations that have been tagged as “Unknown” @DianaStuder ? I’ve wanted to do that each year during the blitzes for accounts less than one week old, and I’m admitting now in public that I haven’t figured out how to do that :-)
URL filter for “unknown” observations:
&identified=false
For instance:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?identified=false
Only observations with photos:
&has[]=photos
And for excluding all these observations:
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/exclusion-list-for-phylogenetic-projects
¬_in_project=154272
Medicago arborea pod from this observation.
I didn’t take a photo of the seeds. They are small and flat.
Another photo from this observation, you can guess where the seeds are:
For the Blitzes - CNC and then GSB (way down South we have two bites at the apple)
I always check Unknowns for Cape Peninsula - have to work MUCH harder and faster to keep up when blitzing!! (my name is Diana I am an iNat addict)
After the deadline I clear the bigger backlog for the Western Cape.
And it took me months to clear my Rest of Africa backlog.
Presuming you want California - mine shows 11K - but I seldom review those
The pods dehisce along the outer edge of the spiral. It’s essentally a “classic” Fabaceae pod that has been twisted on itself along the short edge.
You can see how this transformation happens by looking at pods of Medicago falcata (sickle-shaped), Medicago sativa (spiral-shaped), and the hybrid of the two species, Medicago x varia, which frequently has seed pods that are twisted but don’t form a full spiral.
Interestingly, there are also some Fabaceae where the seed pods are quite straight, but the dry pods that have already released their seeds tend to twist along their length (common with e.g., Lotus), so there seems to be something about the geometry of the legume construction that likes to curl.
Very nice! A lightbulb just went on!!
identified=false means there’s no ID at all, hence “unknown,” which is what I want!
Thank you!
Great! That’s also a solution.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?iconic_taxa=unknown&place_id=123155&per_page=10&order_by=observed_on
I did not know about “iconic_taxa” and how it could be used like this. Thank you. I’m not as ambitious as you, Diana, but I care about the student experience and recruiting young people into the study of nature. “Frequent and Relevant Feedback” is what we all crave, especially students with an assignment. So I like to help.
Unfortunately, iconic_taxa=unknown also includes (for reasons known only to the iNat gods) known observations of bacteria, viruses, and some other uncategorized groups. This can be seen by combining it with identified=true as here:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?iconic_taxa=unknown&identified=true&placeid=10
On the other hand, it includes “State of matter Life” observations that may have stumped other identifiers.
How very interesting! The examples were helpful too, I can see how such a shape developed. Although I will note that Medicago orbicularis pods appear very thin and wafer-like compared to those species, so I still can’t imagine how one would fit legume seeds in there.
With such a distinct shape though, I wonder what evolutionary benefit there is to that pod morphology?
I copypasta URLs put together by people like @pisum or @jeanphilippeb (ask your question - pre-mavericks please - and he finds the answer - wow amaze - in the best possible way!)
Then tweak to fit. TBH most of the bits in the URL utterly mystify me - but the result works for me.
Impressive pod profile of Senna italica:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/145124499
Senna alata is said to have “winged pods”:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/30530808