Referencing again the discussion on the observation I linked earlier: @tonyrebelo said,
Plants is a rubbish bin for plants that cannot be identified.
No expert in this part of the world will ever get a chance to look at plants: we are already overwhelmed with plants to our families.
Meaning that, contrary to conventional iNat wisdom, adding a broad ID such as “plants” actually makes it less likely that an expert will see the observation. At least in a place like Africa.
Here is a prime example:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/66619962
It is very obviously Arecaceae, a palm. So why did it languish at “Plants” for two years? Because someone identified it to “plants” instead of either leaving it at Unknown or identifying it to family. Experts in Seychelles palms never saw it; the identification as “plants” made sure of that. Now that it has been identified to family, someone who knows what it is might actually see it.
Here is another:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/25267070
I’m pretty sure it is a clover, Genus Trifolium. Not that difficult to identify. Yet there it sat as “plants” for three years. Again, in Africa, giving such a broad ID actually prevents experts from seeing it.
The upshot is, in parts of the world where there are few experts, it is better to leave Unknowns as Unknowns unless you know at least the family.
That one conversation with Tony Rebelo has changed my whole approach. My identification activity these past few days is to look at exact_taxon_id of “Plants” in location Africa. I don’t know much about African flora; but I do know the defining characteristics of several plant families, and on every page, I can usually get a few to family, and occasionally genus. We need more of this cleaning out of the rubbish bin.
You are quite right. So those of us who know plant families can take a few cracks at the 40K, even if we don’t know African species.