# Updates to plant annotations **URL:** \ **Category:** News and Updates\ **Created:** [June 20, 2024, 6:01pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/updates-to-plant-annotations/52572 "2024-06-20T18:01:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![carrieseltzer](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/carrieseltzer/32/38544_2.png) [@carrieseltzer](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/carrieseltzer)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2024, 6:01pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/updates-to-plant-annotations/52572/1 "2024-06-20T18:01:00Z")
We’ve just released updates that will make iNaturalist data more useful to the scientific community using iNat for phenology research. The key changes to plant annotations are: - Clarified definitions for flowers and fruits for angiosperms - Addition of leaves and needles for vascular plants - ~~Hiding of sex for all plants~~ You can read the updated definitions in [our documentation](https://help.inaturalist.org/en/support/solutions/articles/151000191830-what-are-the-definitions-of-inaturalist-annotations-). There are new keyboard shortcuts for leaves which you can see on the [Identify view on observations of vascular plants](https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?taxon_id=211194). ~~We’ve excluded “sex” as an annotation for plants. However, any past “sex” annotations for plants are still present (just hidden from view).~~ (Rolled back based on comments below) We’ll announce these changes more broadly ~~tomorrow~~ soon in a blog post, but wanted to mention it here now for anyone who notices it immediately. You’ll also now be able to see on someone’s profile how many observations they have annotated. **Thank you to everyone who has contributed to discussions here and on iNaturalist about improving annotations for plants.** Your suggestions were immensely helpful. We also worked closely with other phenology programs ([USA National Phenology Network](https://usanpn.org/) and [Budburst](https://budburst.org/)) and phenology researchers to develop and revise these terms. These updates were supported by a collaborative grant from the US National Science Foundation to advance plant phenology research through the creation of [Phenobase](https://phenobase.org/). Phenobase will aggregate plant phenology data from many sources using the [Plant Phenology Ontology](https://obofoundry.org/ontology/ppo.html) to maximize data interoperability. The Phenobase collaboration involves the USA National Phenology Network, University of Arizona, Louisiana State University, University of Florida, and the Chicago Botanic Garden. It is hard to strike the balance of broad applicability and useful specificity. We know that many species do not fit nicely into these categories, but the goal is to provide at least a useful starting place for annotating reproductive structures and leaves for most species of plants. We know that these changes don’t advance mosses and other non-vascular plants at all, or reproductive structures for conifers, ferns, and other non-flowering plants. We welcome continued discussion for those in the long [annotations thread](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/lets-talk-annotations/627), but don’t anticipate adding new annotations before 2025. If you notice any issues as we roll this out today, please let us know. ---
**Author:** ![muir](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/muir/32/1103_2.png) [@muir](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/muir)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2024, 7:45pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/updates-to-plant-annotations/52572/2 "2024-06-20T19:45:32Z")
Cool! I also love the ability to see annotations from profile pages, thanks for mentioning that. ---
**Author:** ![lappelbaum](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/lappelbaum/32/7312_2.png) [@lappelbaum](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/lappelbaum)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2024, 8:36pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/updates-to-plant-annotations/52572/3 "2024-06-20T20:36:30Z")
> [@](#): > > **Colored leaves** : At least one leaf or needle has late season or drought color Hopefully people (who didn’t read the definition) don’t get confused by the term “colored leaves” and include leaves that start off colored when they emerge before turning green or leaves that are always colored. ---
**Author:** ![bbk-htx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@bbk-htx](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/bbk-htx)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2024, 9:02pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/updates-to-plant-annotations/52572/4 "2024-06-20T21:02:56Z")
Good job. You can still “agree” or “disagree” with your own selection. ---
**Author:** ![tiwane](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/tiwane/32/54612_2.png) [@tiwane](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/tiwane)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2024, 9:03pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/updates-to-plant-annotations/52572/5 "2024-06-20T21:03:27Z")
There will be a learning curve for sure, I did that with some poison oak. ---
**Author:** ![someplant](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/someplant/32/29417_2.png) [@someplant](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/someplant)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2024, 10:28pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/updates-to-plant-annotations/52572/6 "2024-06-20T22:28:50Z")
Great! Are there keyboard shortcuts for Leaves, just as there are for Flowers and Fruits when in Identify mode? ---
**Author:** ![bouteloua](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/bouteloua/32/1180_2.png) [@bouteloua](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/bouteloua)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2024, 10:30pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/updates-to-plant-annotations/52572/7 "2024-06-20T22:30:39Z")
You can view the shortcuts in the lower left on the Annotations tab of Identify: ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/uploads/inaturalist/original/3X/7/0/70d7d2c0fdaed524ca4d04b13e1f9812840ff9b3.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![ericao](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/ericao/32/10578_2.png) [@ericao](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/ericao)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2024, 10:31pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/updates-to-plant-annotations/52572/8 "2024-06-20T22:31:34Z")
I’m curious as to why sex was excluded as an annotation. It was handy for looking at male and female flower emergence in dioecious species, for example. ---
**Author:** ![keirmorse](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/keirmorse/32/17344_2.png) [@keirmorse](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/keirmorse)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2024, 1:56am UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/updates-to-plant-annotations/52572/9 "2024-06-21T01:56:23Z")
…And showing how different the male and female flowers or even whole male and female plants are sometimes. ---
**Author:** ![natev](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/natev/32/29855_2.png) [@natev](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/natev)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2024, 2:06am UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/updates-to-plant-annotations/52572/10 "2024-06-21T02:06:56Z")
Yes, I had the same initial interpretation of colored leaves–I was thinking new growth on Nekemias arborea or some Rosa species, not late season/drought color. Maybe “discolored leaves” would be more intuitive? ---
**Author:** ![annkatrinrose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47774/32.png) [@annkatrinrose](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/annkatrinrose)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2024, 2:31am UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/updates-to-plant-annotations/52572/11 "2024-06-21T02:31:44Z")
One question as I’m going through my own observations to annotate leaf color: I have a few that show nicely colored leaves but detached from the tree (e.g. on the ground). Should these be annotated as well, or only ones that are still attached to the tree? ---
**Author:** ![sedgequeen](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/sedgequeen/32/1928_2.png) [@sedgequeen](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/sedgequeen)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2024, 2:45am UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/updates-to-plant-annotations/52572/12 "2024-06-21T02:45:06Z")
Change not as bad as I kind of expected. However. (1) I think you need to choose a different term for “colored leaves” since green is a color. (2) Bring back the sex annotation! (Or remove it for animals – do you really want to do that?) You could reword it “Dioecious – plant female; Dioecious – plant male; not dioecious.” Or add terms for monoecious plants. Will everyone understand dioecious and monoecious? No. But at least you’d have the data from some of us. ---
**Author:** ![alex\_abair](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/alex_abair/32/2637_2.png) [@alex\_abair](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/alex_abair)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2024, 3:50am UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/updates-to-plant-annotations/52572/13 "2024-06-21T03:50:46Z")
Something that would be helpful (maybe difficult to implement) is a way to search people who are making specific annotations. I’d be really interested to connect with people working on similar or the same groups as me so that we could form collaborative work groups to tackle large jobs. ---
**Author:** ![joshua\_tx](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/joshua_tx/32/11071_2.png) [@joshua\_tx](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/joshua_tx)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2024, 5:42am UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/updates-to-plant-annotations/52572/14 "2024-06-21T05:42:31Z")
Taking away sex annotations sure seems to be a step backwards for iNaturalist. These annotations were leading towards plenty of meaningful data for many dioecious species where sex ratios, flowering times for each sex, parasitism ratios, etc. are sparsely recorded if not completely unknown to science. And with all the added annotations, some of which seem of questionable usefulness, it’s surprising to see that fruiting was not split into developing fruits vs. ripe fruits. Many users annotate plants with developing fruits as “fruiting”, which really undermines the usefulness of that data. ---
**Author:** ![andreass1](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/andreass1/32/37391_2.png) [@andreass1](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/andreass1)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2024, 7:19am UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/updates-to-plant-annotations/52572/15 "2024-06-21T07:19:00Z")
> [@joshua\_tx](#): > > Many users annotate plants with developing fruits as “fruiting”, which really undermines the usefulness of that data. Genuinely curious, how else would you annotate a plant with developing fruits? Not at all? ---
**Author:** ![DianaStuder](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/dianastuder/32/43358_2.png) [@DianaStuder](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/DianaStuder)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2024, 8:05am UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/updates-to-plant-annotations/52572/16 "2024-06-21T08:05:58Z")
That > Dioecious **plant** female would make it clear to non-botanists that when iNat asks for Sex, they are not the gender police. (Be careful what you wish for. _Mea culpa_) I was hoping that we would get an option more like the way animal annotations are done. Larva is offered for this taxon, **but not where it does not apply**. Now my workaround is to leave a comment - male flowers - but that will not let me sort for ‘pictures of male flowers’. If we could flag for curation _This taxon needs the existing Sex annotations to be UNhidden please_. And then should allow us to annotate for Sex for that taxon in future again. 33K for [https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/186152-Leucadendron](https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/186152-Leucadendron) 40K for [https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/54693-Restionaceae](https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/54693-Restionaceae) This solution is similar to hiding all Larva annotations across relevant animals. ---
**Author:** ![thecephalotaxusguy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/thecephalotaxusguy/32/21501_2.png) [@thecephalotaxusguy](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/thecephalotaxusguy)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2024, 10:23am UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/updates-to-plant-annotations/52572/18 "2024-06-21T10:23:21Z")
I frequently ID dioecious plants and used the sex annotation all the time. I’m really sorry to see it go. It’s useful for finding observations of plants that are one sex or another, either for research purposes or just to find good photos. For instance I used it to look for observations of the rare yellow-fruited form of common spicebush, Lindera benzoin, where I only want to see female observations for obvious reasons. It can also be useful to study sex distribution within populations, where sometimes there are more males or females. I know there is some difficulty with having the sex annotation on plants, as plant sex can be fluid with many plants being monoecious and others capable of changing sex, but I can’t help but feel that this is a negative change for the platform. Dioecious plants are a thing and knowing what sex they are can be useful. ---
**Author:** ![trscavo](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/trscavo/32/3386_2.png) [@trscavo](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/trscavo)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2024, 10:50am UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/updates-to-plant-annotations/52572/19 "2024-06-21T10:50:20Z")
I stopped using the sex annotation awhile ago so it doesn’t bother me that it is gone. It wasn’t very useful for plants and tended to be misused. For example, some users marked trilliums “sex can not be determined” when the flower clearly had both male and female parts. I used to mark _Acer pensylvanicum_ as female whenever I observed fruits but after awhile I realized that was wrong. The sex annotation isn’t really about plants, it’s about flowers (or at least I think it should be). Assuming the plant being identified has flowers, there are flowers with female parts, or flowers with male parts, or flowers with both female and male parts, or some combination of those options. So it’s complicated. ---
**Author:** ![spiphany](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/spiphany/32/31332_2.png) [@spiphany](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/spiphany)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2024, 11:23am UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/updates-to-plant-annotations/52572/20 "2024-06-21T11:23:20Z")
> [@trscavo](#): > > The sex annotation isn’t really about plants, it’s about flowers (or at least I think it should be). Assuming the plant being identified has flowers, there are flowers with female parts, or flowers with male parts, or flowers with both female and male parts, or some combination of those options. This is how I see it, too. I think to be useful the sex annotation would need to include the three values _male flowers_, _female flowers_, and _perfect/bisexual flowers_ and allow selecting multiple options to reflect the possible combinations of flower types (e.g. many cucurbits are monoecious with male and female flowers developing at different times, so any given plant might have male flowers only, female flowers only, or a combination of both). ---
**Author:** ![carrieseltzer](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/carrieseltzer/32/38544_2.png) [@carrieseltzer](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/carrieseltzer)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2024, 1:49pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/updates-to-plant-annotations/52572/21 "2024-06-21T13:49:38Z")
> [@annkatrinrose](#): > > One question as I’m going through my own observations to annotate leaf color: I have a few that show nicely colored leaves but detached from the tree (e.g. on the ground). Should these be annotated as well, or only ones that are still attached to the tree? Please annotate leaves even if they are not attached to the tree. > [@joshua\_tx](#): > > And with all the added annotations, some of which seem of questionable usefulness, it’s surprising to see that fruiting was not split into developing fruits vs. ripe fruits. Many users annotate plants with developing fruits as “fruiting”, which really undermines the usefulness of that data. Separating ripe and unripe fruits was considered, but since the ability to easily see this varies considerably from species to species, we opted to keep a single fruit option. For anyone interested in finer phenological definitions for particular species, we suggest using observation fields. > [@ericao](#): > > I’m curious as to why sex was excluded as an annotation. It was handy for looking at male and female flower emergence in dioecious species, for example. The sex annotation applied to all life (with exceptions, now including plants) has just three mutually exclusive options: female, male, and cannot be determined. These three options don’t make sense for the vast majority of plant species, and that is reflected in how little the sex annotation was used for plants. For context and easy reference (since the plant sex data is not lost), here are some links to show how many observations have been annotated: | Annotation type | Number of verifiable observations | Number of species | Link | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Flower & fruit annotations | 8,042,026 | 91,189 | [https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?term\_id=12](https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?term_id=12) | | Plants with Sex annotations | 93,440 | 10,482 | [https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?taxon\_id=47126&term\_id=9](https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?taxon_id=47126&term_id=9) | | Plants with Sex: Female annotations | 36,936 | 3,240 | [https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?taxon\_id=47126&term\_id=9&term\_value\_id=10](https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?taxon_id=47126&term_id=9&term_value_id=10) | | Plants with Sex: Male annotations | 16,475 | 1,960 | [https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?taxon\_id=47126&term\_id=9&term\_value\_id=11](https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?taxon_id=47126&term_id=9&term_value_id=11) | | Plants with Sex: Cannot be determined annotations | 37,642 | 8,449 | [https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?taxon\_id=47126&term\_id=9&term\_value\_id=20](https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?taxon_id=47126&term_id=9&term_value_id=20) | | Leaf annotations (\<24 hours of entry) | 6,417 | 2,053 | [https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?taxon\_id=47126&term\_id=36](https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?taxon_id=47126&term_id=36) | If you look at the species in each of the sex annotation categories, a relatively small number of species dominate, e.g. persimmons. As many of you have pointed out, an annotation specifically about flower types would be more appropriate. I would love to replace “Sex” with something that would be more applicable to most species of plants, so please keep the suggestions (and nuances) coming. (Note that non-flowering [common liverwort](https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/56406-Marchantia-polymorpha) is 6th for the [most-sex-annotated species](https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&taxon_id=47126&term_id=9&term_value_id=10&view=species) (edited to add—because it is dioecious)). [Next page](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/updates-to-plant-annotations/52572.md?page=2)