I agree, that seems possible, even likely. I don’t work with phenology data so I don’t know how they’ll deal with that. For plants whose normal leaves are not green, I would doubt that the intention is to mark these as having coloured leaves.
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The leaf annotations seem focused on (mostly Northern and then far South) deciduous spp.
Better if it was named
Deciduous leaves
then toggle between Green or Turning.
Breaking buds is also for this focus.
?
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There are also tropical and subtropical deciduous plants. I agree this field is mostly relevant to deciduous species and would not bother annotating leaves for evergreen species.
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I’m new to iNat, I’m new to this forum, and I’m new to plants. I’m learning about plants from these discussions that we’re having on this forum: monocot vs. dicot, monoecious vs. dioecious, etc. I’m very grateful to all of you for that! 
There’s always a balance to strike between iNat’s primary purpose of engagement, and its secondary purpose of data collection. The more precise we make the annotations, the more we alienate average people who aren’t familiar with technical terms.
High accuracy with low accessibility was the norm for hundreds of years in botany, which made it less approachable for most people.
That’s why iNat’s accessibility is revolutionary! 
iNat’s success is largely due to how welcoming it is to everyone, from school kids to world experts. The trade-off is that sometimes the data will be less precise, but engagement is so much higher! 
It’s a constant walking of a tightrope, and iNat staff, like @tiwane and @carrieseltzer, pull off that balancing act every day. They have done a wonderful job of creating a global platform for engaging with nature while still contributing valuable data to our scientific community.
Let’s celebrate the amazing work of the iNat team! This platform has connected so many people with nature and with science! These discussions make this platform better for everyone. Let’s continue to grow this incredible community! 
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I’ve actually started doing just that on a few species that have leaves that turn red over the winter. Research studies have been done on these and proposed that this is an adaptation to increased light + low temperature stress on deciduous forest understory plants that are typically shaded by the canopy during the summer. Anthocyanins to the rescue! Here’s an example (hiding “no annotation” because obviously there is a lot more work to be done):
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I can easily see using breaking buds for conifers as they have their own bud break and needle elongation period, so I don’t think the focus for this one is only for deciduous species.
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From my temperate mediterranean climate - breaking buds after a cold winter - is not an annotation which applies to ‘all plants’.
But we have a long wish list for plant annotations - cones for conifers would be near the top of my list. I want to click … fruit …
Annotated as Coloured leaves almost 700 obs.
I wonder how many don’t fit the intended small print?
I see a palm tree ? I don’t think any / many of the first 30 fit.
Someone (else) needs to explain to annotators that Colored Leaves has a narrow and particular meaning - At least one leaf or needle has late season or drought color.
We iNatters have no reason to expect that, if we haven’t seen the Forum update.
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Oh yes, it certainly doesn’t apply to all plants, if it’s specific to only bud break after winter. Just that it certainly can be applied past just deciduous plants.
Though I am looking at the definition as written right now:
Breaking leaf buds: At least one bud with its first new leaf or needle not fully unfolded
Can’t this also apply to many tropical plants as well? They are still growing, showing buds that may be unfurling with new leaves at various times of the year. I don’t see this applying only to budbreak after winter at all. Some plants will break buds after a dry dormant season, rather than a cold one. And some will be sporadically creating new growth, depending on their habits.
I think cones (even with male/female/unsure/whatever annotations possible for those!) would be a great addition for conifers.
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Bud break after a fire - but we have a project for that.
Some prickly pear cactus turn purple over the winter. Is that a colored leaf?
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I don’t know if anyone has mentioned this here, but I couldn’t find anything when I searched. I think the definition of fruits and seeds is too generic and not very useful. It is important to distinguish between fruiting events and actual fruits. In the context of plants with woody fruits and orthodox seeds, these can be found on the forest floor during various months of the year, regardless of the fruiting season. I have always aimed to record only immature or mature fruits on the plant before dispersal has occurred. When it is simplified to just images of fruits and seeds, I could add this observation to a handful of seeds that were part of some museum collection at any time of the year. This loses the utility of the phenological marking of the item, which I considered to be the purpose.
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I think the same way. Personally, I believe that adding the fruiting event is more useful for phenology than fruits or seeds lost in time. However, the way this field was changed makes me uncertain about how to proceed. In this context, I see no logic in the phenology chart if it doesn’t represent an actual fruiting event with immature and mature fruits on the plant.
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We need to know when NOT to use the annotations.
I still do not understand why the new Colored Leaves annotation conflates turning to autumn with drought. How can you use that phenology to track when leaves change colour if drought is muddled in?
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Another point that I just remembered is that it would be interesting to add a field in leaf phenology to include plants that do not produce leaves, such as some saprophytic herbs, parasitic plants, and cacti. Something like “Does not produce” or “Not applicable”. So that they do not simply remain without any annotation.
On the one hand some are saying “these definitions are too broad and aren’t useful” while others are saying “these definitions are too narrow and don’t think about x”. I’d agree conceptually but disagree practically with both.
As Carrie mentioned, they worked with USA National Phenology Network on this. Note that USANPN already has their own phenophase definitions that are much more complex than iNaturalists. See https://www.usanpn.org/files/reports/usa-npn_plant_and_animal_phenophase_definitions_v2.0.pdf. I don’t know if these are their most current definitions but that’s besides the point.
Given that it seems the team took USANPN’s definitions as a start (you can tell from the wording of the annotations and their definitions) and then tried to balance consumability/usability for the average iNatter with value to downstream consumers of the information. I think they did a pretty nice job.
Would it be helpful to a phenologist to be able to distinguish between specimens with accrescing fruit versus those that are mature/ripe? Sure! Would a large number of iNatters apply phenology attributes if they had to choose between a dozen phenophases? Probably not. Would you rather have coarse phenology information, or none at all?
Does the wording of the categories and their definitions leave some question about how some things fit in? Sure, but it doesn’t really seem all that confusing to me, especially when you consider them in the context of one another (and phenophase definitions elsewhere):
- Breaking leaf buds: At least one bud with its first new leaf or needle not fully unfolded
- (i.e. baby leaves that are getting ready to start soaking in those delicious rays from the sun)
- Green leaves: At least one green leaf or needle (or reddish if this is the normal healthy color)
- (i.e. live, unfurled leaves that are going to work every day and bringing home a paycheck; have a ratio of pigments typical for the species under healthful conditions; just some leaves)
- Colored leaves: At least one leaf or needle has late season or drought color
- (i.e. live, unfurled leaves that are enjoying retirement; have a ratio of pigments typical for the species in stressed conditions caused by the abiotic environment – moisture levels, day length, temparature, etc. regardless of whether it’s due to “seasons” (i.e. “the autumn season” or “the dry season” or whatever season and whatever number of seasons your area has and whether they occur in a sequential, cyclical fashion); leaves doing the thing they do in the “leaves turn a different color” season)
- No live leaves: No breaking leaf buds or green or colored leaves or needles are visible
- I don’t think I need to explain this one.
- I don’t think I need to explain this one.
Perhaps though it might ease the confusion a tiny bit if in the menu where you select which annotation to apply, “Green leaves” came before “Colored leaves” instead of after?
As soon as I see “Colored leaves”, my brain immediately thinks that my green leaf is applicable, when it’s not, at least not in the spirit of the definition of that annotation.
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Is there a reason why there are no flower annotations available for Larix species? The larch trees of Banff National Park are a huge spectacle to many. I’ve added the coloured annotations for the observations there which worked well but unable to add flower annotations. Photos below.
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Larches are conifers, and the Flowers and Fruits annotation only applies to Angiospermae at the moment. See Carrie’s text from the original past regarding conifers:
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If you’re talking about the pads, those are stems. I’m not sure if the leaves change from green before they fall off.
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Maybe this has already been mentioned but I find the new “Leaves” annotations’ keyboard shortcuts constraining. The keys are too close to each other on a QWERTY keyboard to efficiently annotate with them. Why are they so tightly clustered? I would enjoy the option of changing all keyboard shortcuts (or at least annotation shortcuts) useable on the Identify page.
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I was just thinking about this the other day. You should create a feature request! (If one does not exist already, that is. I did a quick search and didn’t find one, but I only looked for like 30 second.)
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