Use of iNaturalist by regional flora

New Flora of Vermont [Gilman 2015; ISBN 978-0-89327-516-7] is the standard botanical reference for the state of Vermont, USA. To date, three addenda have been published: A-I, A-II, and A-III. The three documents use the word “iNaturalist” 0, 9, and 18 times, respectively. For the first time, A-III includes a new species (Ribes rotundifolium) supported by iNaturalist observations alone. No physical specimen was collected since the species is presumed to be very rare.

This story illustrates the utility of the iNat platform, a growing trust of iNat data, and the positive contributions of iNat citizen-scientists (many of whom are mentioned in the pages of the addenda).

Are there other flora moving in this direction?

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“Red Data Book of the City of Moscow”, Russia (2022) cites iNaturalist observations as 217 references for plants and fungi and 235 references for animals. Thanks to editors who insisted that a published observation should be treated as a published source. Link: https://www.mos.ru/eco/function/krasnaya-kniga-moskvy/

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A few Australian botanists have been reviewing and IDing iNat observations while preparing new Flora of Australia family treatments, although I don’t know if the records will be explicitly mentioned in the treatments or just eg inform expert range maps

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Not very far along yet, but an Oregon collaboration (Oregon State University Herbarium, Oregon Flora Project and Native Plant Society of Oregon) has recently created the Flora of Oregon: Vascular Plants project with the intention of linking iNaturalist observations into future revisions of the Flora. @mickley may have more details.

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