I am adding it to a project Pollinator Associations, which also collects examples of predators laying in wait for pollinators. One field is “Name of Associated Plant”, so I want to name the plant, not because I care about IDing the cultivated plant (I know exactly what was planted there), but to document wild animals interacting with it.
The flower is Rudbeckia x American Gold Rush, according to the label when the city gardeners put it in my rain planter. According to these sources, its seed parent is Rudbeckia fulgida var. deamii:
Does that mean I should label this plant as Rudbeckia fulgida var. deamii? Or just the species, or just the genus? There is no option for noting the specific cultivar, even though I know what cultivar it is.
Once again I know that iNaturalist is for observing wildlife, I just want to accurately record wildlife interacting with cultivated plants.
I would leave it as Rudbeckia if it is a hybrid between two species, or Rudbeckia fulgida var. deamii if it is a pure descendant of it. Genus(or even species) level should be fine.
Labels can be misleading, so unless you know the cultivar directly, I would leave it at genus. You can always add a note describing the plant’s source and its label.
I agree that leaving it at genus and adding a note is the safest option if you don’t have more detailed information on its ancestry. Also, not trying to derail because I know this is discussed elsewhere, but I think adding a (correctly marked) observation of a cultivated plant that’s interacting with wildlife is perfectly fine, if you’d like to.
I generally leave cultivars with complicated parentage at genus when recording them for host purposes. A lot of hybridized cultivars don’t have well-documented ancestry, often complicated by taxonomy changes (and disagreements) since they were first created. Horticulturists don’t always follow the same sources for taxonomy as iNat.
If you know the cultivar name, that can be useful information for gardeners seeking to add pollinator plants. I usually add it in a note/comment on the observation, e.g. “observed on Rudbeckia x American Gold Rush” and for hybrids use the genus for IDs/observation fields. You could also add a tag with the cultivar name to make it searchable by tag.
There’s an ongoing debate about the ecosystem benefits (or lack thereof) of cultivars and specifically ‘nativars’ (cultivars of native plants). Some are obviously not as beneficial (e.g. double flowers that make no pollen/seeds) for wildlife in the garden, while others are just as popular with the bees and butterflies as their wild counterparts. Places like Mt. Cuba Center do a lot of horticultural trials with various cultivars to test for these things. If a seller wants to advertise a cultivar as “pollinator-friendly” to the ecologically-minded gardener, there should be some data to back that up. So this type of info is useful, it’s just not what iNaturalist is set up to capture.
Unfortunately specific Observation Fields aren’t used consistently by different users and projects, but you can use the same one(s) for all of your own observations, at least, so that they can be searched later. Sometimes specific projects have a field that they would prefer you use in cases like this.
