If I know a plant is flowering / flower budding after I’ve taken observations of it, (by looking at a new section), should I add flowering / flower bud annotations to those observations, even if the flowers and buds aren’t actually included?
Or should they only go on observations where the flowers are visible?
I don’t know what you mean by “new section”
You should only include annotations of things visible in the photos
If you saw a plant in flower but only photographed part of the plant that wasn’t flowering, I’d say yes, definitely add flowering as an Annotation. Nobody else can because the flowers are not in the photo but it’s your observation.
Of course, it would be better to also photograph the flowers.
by “new section” I mean it’s a clonal species, so one individual is spread out over a big area, so before, I could only see one section, but today went further in and found flowers
I’d include an observation note but not annotate. If the observation is going to be research grade, it should include evidence that other users could verify. Science is less “trust me, I saw it” and more “here’s the evidence, judge for yourself.” You do have the option of using an observation field to link related observations.
Yes, I’m planning to have photos of the flowers added in the comments of the observation annotated
You can upload the flower photos to the observation itself by clicking the plus sign under the original photos, and then add a note in the description that they were added later.
Recently iNat had this webinar on " Phenology in Focus: Exploring Plant Cycles with iNaturalist"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57teTK5V5t0
Maybe your answer is hiding in there somewhere.
Just make a second observation of the “new section,” including flowers. If I didn’t see flowers on the first observation, I wouldn’t claim later that I did.
These photos are from a different day, since the first time I just didn’t notice, so they can’t be on the same observations without making it casual :)
Since photos of any taxon can be browsed with a filter for annotations, my inclination would be to only annotate when the condition is visible in the photo(s).
Make a second observation of the flowers and link them to the first observation, adding a note in both observations should cover it.
You may be looking for the term ramet.
Thank you for this! You are so very right!
ah! Yes that is what I meant. Didn’t know that was a word! thanks :)
My opinion is… add the annotation. There is no way to know what a future cv might be able to deduce wrt flowering from a photograph that doesn’t show obvious flowering. If you annotate it, it would make the observation interesting for training a future cv.
It will be plainly obvious to everyone (including scientists) that the photographs don’t show obvious flowering but the annotation indicates otherwise. If the scientists don’t look at the data they’re including in their datasets, that’s on them.
I agree, and I’m not worried about them or future CV capabilities. I’m thinking of the beginning user who wants to see photos of what the flowers look like, and is shown a bunch of non-flowering photos instead.
Technically that’s inevitable, since the annotation applies to the observation as a whole, but as someone who does search through taxa via annotations (to familiarise myself with what they look like, to find relevant observations to link as evidence, and to find photos to add to the taxon photos) I can guarantee you I would be deeply confused by an observation marked flowering without flowers. depending on the type of plant (thinking of sedges, which are opaque at the best of times) I could get really confused, though observation notes would clarify as I do look at the observation proper when I’m baffled enough.
I usually ponder this question from the perspective of “do I mark this plant as having green leaves when I know that it has green leaves, but no one photographed them, so on the one hand I have no evidence but on the other hand it’s obvious and leaving holes in the annotations hurts me deeply”
Leave the baffling holes. Our choir leader once told us, the rests in music are important, like the holes in lace. Part of the whole, of the pattern.
