The suburban town where I live is not remarkable for biodiversity despite having a lot of conservation land. Utility easement areas are an exception–some combination of abundant sun and distance from houses probably helps. Recently I was visiting a gas line easement and in a swampy area saw many species that while not strictly rare are uncommon in this area.. Upon investigation it appears the company following some maintenance work in 2022 had various requirements of the treatment of the land. They confirmed they had fixed the tire ruts and also planted a native species mix. Given that these species are naturalized at this point I’m calling them wild not cultivated. Do you agree?
If the individual plants you see If they came in on their own, they are wild. If people planted them, they are cultivated. If they are the offspring of the originally planted ones, they are wild. If in doubt, call them wild.
yes! I’ve been running into the same question myself. I wish we had a third option beyond wild or cultivated. Would be awesome if we could say “uncertain / restoration planting”, since truly wild is different than a restoration planting, and a restoration planting is different than simply “cultivated”. I will say powerline and other right of ways do tend to have very high natural diversity since they are some of the last remaining open, sunny, grassy areas with occasional disturbance (mowing). Could you possibly get the seed list that they planted, if its not on the list you’d know it’s the “pure” local ecotype
If they are annuals, I’d call them wild as they are offspring. If they are adult perennials, I’d call them cultivated.
Adult perennials that were grown from seed and appear to be spreading? i.e., what is there did not start as plugs or adult plants.
Annuals reseeding ? Yes Wild.
If trees or shrubs, then the second generation is Wild.
Native sp mix might not be locally indigenous ? Depending.
These bulbs were rescued. Bulked up. Planted where the site was right. And since they know exactly where the original clumps were planted … they know which plants are seeded second generation.
Any plants that grew from seeds that humans intentionally planted in a specific place would be cultivated there.
I do like the idea of “restoration planting” Cultivated is pejorative; it’s iNaturalist’s way of saying ignore me.
The requirement for the offspring of cultivated plants to be “spreading outside the intended gardening area” in order to count as wild, seems to create a confusing gray area when it comes to restoration plantings without clearly defined boundaries.
I totally agree that if I plant a self-seeding domestic flower in a bed in my yard and let them reseed every year, those flowers in that bed would be forever “cultivated.” I also agree that if a bird carries a seed to a neighbor’s field where they see it and think “Huh, where did that come from?” it would be wild. The neighbor’s field wasn’t where I planted it or intended it to reseed. So to that extent the definition makes sense.
But if I plant a few of some rare native wildflower in one spot, hoping it will spread throughout my entire woodland over time, does that make my entire acreage the “intended gardening area?”
If it’s descendants eventually cross a property line, are they “wild” on the neighbor’s land but cultivated on my side?
And what if as I planted the original seed, I was thinking, “I hope these will spread far beyond my land, and repopulate the entire region.” would that thought alone make their descendants forever cultivated, no matter where they spread? (That would seem to give a bit too much weight to human intention, in my opinion.)
It sounds like the utility company may have torn up a wetland with heavy machinery and been required to fill and reseed the ruts they made, likely to prevent silting down-watershed. This now becomes a question of whether the “intended gardening area” was the entire easement, or just the filled ruts. The person who did the planting likely had no intention one way or another, as they were just earning a paycheck. The company had the intention of passing an inspection. The local government (or at least whoever successfully lobied for the regulations) had the intention of protecting water quality, which probably came down to bare ground needing to be revegitated before a silt fence could come down. I would say only the ruts were the “intended gardening area” and if you can no longer tell where those were, it likely means plants have spread outside of it. So maybe wild?
I do think if you end up calling them wild it would be a good idea to put in the notes that these are “likely spreading from a restoration planting” or something similar.
I do think your point about what goes in the notes is important, particularly now that there are research projects that are using the notes not just the structured data. What’s funny is I looked at the upland area of the easement where there was wild bergamot and didn’t document it–being pretty sure it was planted given what else is around there. But the swamp plants aren’t decorative and seemed pretty naturalized so I treated them as wild.
And of course, your initial instinct that they weren’t even descendants of a planting could easily be correct, unless you were able to get a species list of what was planted. An area can be planted with a native seed mix, and still have additional plants arrive through natural means.
Mixes do tend to favor decorative plants, but they also often include plants that are particularly good at stabilizing soil, such as grasses, sedges, and vining groundcovers. If what you observed wasn’t decorative or erosion resistant, that increases it’s odds of having arrived by natural means.
I might be in the minority here, but I would lean towards referring to a restored native species as wild as opposed to cultivated (unless ongoing intervention makes clear otherwise). Otherwise one could make the argument that second growth forests like portions of the redwood forest are cultivated, which I don’t think would be very accurate (maybe cultivated is the correct designation for second growth? I’m still new to this). While certainly many of those trees are offspring that have grown wild their entire lives, there will be several that aren’t.
I do like the idea I see many posting of including in the comments that this was a reseeded area, as opposed to an intended gardening area, as while a human may have put it there, I doubt a human is stopping by to regularly check up on and monitor the health of said plants as one would a deliberate garden (nature enthusiasts notwithstanding).
iNaturalist’s own FAQ acknowledges that this can be a gray area, but gives the example “plants that grew from seeds that were planted in the ground or scattered” as a concrete example of cultivated. Which while it seems like it would apply here, it’s missing the context of the plant being there previously, being destroyed by human activity, and then restored by human activity.
I think the concern is that the term “cultivated” on inat only refers to individual plants, not populations/species. So while the population of that species was there, was destroyed, and was then restored, that’s not relevant to the question of whether the individual plant being observed is or isn’t cultivated. That specific individual plant obviously wasn’t destroyed and then brought back into existence. It was (in some of the example cases given) just planted there by a person. The fact that other members of its species used to be there doesn’t impact the labeling one way or the other.
This claim is the main issue here, I’d say:
It’s not, in my opinion. But it’s clearly interpreted that way sometimes. If someone has spent a bunch of time restoring a native prairie, that’s awesome! If I mark the sweet native plants they’ve put there as “cultivated”, I don’t mean anything bad by that. I’m not calling them useless or invasive or anything like that. I’m just saying “a person put that specific plant there”. I’m glad they put it there! But it’s still cultivated.
I don’t think “gardening area” is intended to be interpreted quite so broadly. If a plant is deliberately introduced into a forest and starts reproducing there and spreading without human help, I wouldn’t interpret that forest as a “gardening area”; I’d just call those descendants wild. “Gardening area” to me implies a limited designated space where plants are cared for, watered, trimmed, weeded, etc. Plants that “get out” and are reproducing on their own without this help are not in the garden any more. I don’t think anyone would argue that a wood lot you threw some seeds into a few years ago is a “gardening area”. I might be biased by my American perspective though. I know “garden” is a much broader term in other English-speaking countries, and seems to be used to refer to a lot more of one’s outdoor plot than the average American means by the term. I’m assuming since iNat is American-based that they mean “garden” in the American sense.
I would agree that they are wild.
I use a broad definition of “not planted or transplanted = wild” or the second generation test. Yes there are places where this gets muddy but I’m talking about in general.
I have been watching populations of “escapees” in my city, such as Catapla, Ulmus, Erythrostemon, as well as yellow iris. If they are multiplying without direct management, for the purpose of keeping alive, by humans then I consider them wild as long as they sprouted there.
As to the general question of what does wild mean I think that is a complex and individual belief. I think you could probably write a whole PhD in some sociology of ecology/conservation terms on it.
I think this is a great example of where and how the cultivated/wild labels break down. The wild/cultivated dichotomy has no scientific basis and continues the problematic nature/culture dichotomy that has been unravelling for some time now in response to robust postmodern critique. I think this is something that restoration ecologists and environmental anthropologists can agree on: human agency in managing plants and ecosystems is complex and not easily categorized, especially by something as blunt as the cultivated/wild thing we’re stuck with on inaturalist. A huge proportion of public parks in the U.S. and beyond are planted out with native (and nonative) trees and shrubs, to a point where it’s often impossible to know if an individual plant along many public walking trails was planted/seeded by human hands or not. In North America, logging companies replant millions of trees in national forests after clearcut operations; mining and construction companies are often required to do the same. 10 or 20 years later, restored forests can look convincingly wild, and you won’t find many people tagging inaturalist observations of such trees as cultivated, although they are according to the inat’s definitions. Users on this forum have even described opportunistically relocating native plants from green spaces that will be destroyed to other sites, so there’s no easy guarantee that any plant we stumble on in ‘nature’ really hasn’t been touched by human hands. Beyond the American context, things get even muddier, as paul_dennehy points out:
“I might be biased by my American perspective though. I know “garden” is a much broader term in other English-speaking countries, and seems to be used to refer to a lot more of one’s outdoor plot than the average American means by the term. I’m assuming since iNat is American-based that they mean “garden” in the American sense.”
Indeed, practices like forest gardening, rotational swidden agriculture, paracultivation etc. are not unusual but completely the norm among indigenous and local communities in much of the world, and particularly in the tropics. When these practices employ non-native species, they can be detected, but when native plants are concerned, many of us would fail to notice that a given plant is not ‘wild’ after the growing space where it was planted has begun to revegetate. Yet on inat, we apply a Euroamerican definition of ‘nature’ and ‘gardens’ to the entire world by forcing the use of the cultivated/wild labels. This is a key conceptual failing of the site, in my opinion.
However, and in all fairness, I think iNat is not actually the driver behind these silly categories; I believe that this requirement comes from GBIF, so it’s hard to imagine a revamp of the system that would satisfy not only the inat user base but also powerful biodiversity data aggregators like GBIF. I think if we zoom out to that perspective, GBIF is likely concerned primarily with the planting of non-native species, since this could rapidly mess up their distribution maps. Whether a planted native shrub in a restored ecosystem is marked as wild or captive shouldn’t matter at all from that perspective, because it won’t change how species distribution appears on such platforms.
Not really. Yes, there is grey area about what should count as wild or not wild on iNat, but the wild/cultivated dichotomy as used on iNat has nothing whatsoever to do with the nature/culture dichotomy. It is based on the fact that iNat observations mainly represent occurrence data – that is, where particular species are to be found. Even if one does not see humans as separate from nature, if one is studying biodiversity it is not irrelevant to know whether the individual is there because a human put it there or whether it got there on its own.
A sunflower planted in a field is not useful occurrence data: we already know it is there because we put it there. A cactus growing in a pot in my living room is also not useful occurrence data (though it might be interesting cultural data). A sunflower that sprouted by a bench in a park from seeds accidentally spread from a birdfeeder is interesting occurrence data, as this sunflower might spread to other areas where humans didn’t plan for it to be and it might affect the park ecosystem in unintended ways. Ditto for a cactus that has spontaneously sprouted from organic waste dumped outside somewhere.
Even in the contest of restoration ecology, it is useful to know whether the individuals in a population that was originally intentionally brought to a place are the same ones that were put there, or whether the population is reproducing and sustaining itself without direct human intervention. In most cases, the goal of such projects is not to completely avoid human intervention at all, but to create conditions in which the members of the ecosystem can survive with limited active management – i.e., not requiring humans to replant particular species every year.
It is not about whether humans influence environments (many wild plants grow in heavily human-shaped places, e.g., sidewalk cracks, agricultural fields), but about whether a given individual has agency in being where it is. In practice, this is of course often difficult to determine – trees in wooded areas that are a mixture of planted individuals and spontaneous regrowth are a classic example of this. However, I don’t think this is a reason to abandon the distinction entirely, as there are many cases (house plants, pets, zoo animals) where it clearly makes sense to have a way to separate them from individuals that are not spending their lives entirely at the will of humans.
just another thought:
Bill Mollison is credited with the saying “everything gardens,” which reflects a key principle of permaculture. This concept suggests that all species, including humans, can positively influence their environment.
I mostly love the way iNat is set up with this. And I think clarity around an observation being an encounter with an individual plant largely resolves the tensions around the wild/cultivated dichotomy with an appropriate level of nuance.
I should be clear about my base assumptions/interpretation first too; I think “wild” could be thought of as synonymous with “self-propagated”. When I wonder “is this plant wild or cultivated?” I’m thinking “did the propagule which was once this individual plant, get to this location because of intentional installation by humans”. A plant which arose from seed in a native seed mix packet is certainly cultivated, it’s self-propagated offspring are wild.
I’d disagree with the sentiment that “wild” and “cultivated” necessarily has a value judgement, (***However, see below*) In fact I actually think it’s generally the most neutral lay-term which could be used. Alternative terms like “restoration planting”, “horticultural installation”, “invasive”, “landscaping”, “weed”, “regeneration”, “escape”, tend to have a more strongly implied value judgement.
I also think it’s important to note that most alternative terms generally lump different pieces of information together into the one label, where it is clearer (and more neutral) to keep these separate (i.e. those labels which refer to different permutations of whether or not something is “wild”, “cultivated”, “native” or “introduced”, and whether something is a part of a population which is increasing or decreasing).
I think it’s cleaner in general to just be recording one thing at a time. For data quality on iNat; an observation is an encounter with an individual plant, so any data quality label ideally refers to something which can be independently specific to that observation.
***here is my big “***however,” though:
Whilst I think “wild” and “cultivated” need to be clearly labelled separately, I don’t personally think an observation of a “cultivated” plant is necessarily a scientifically casual observation to make - I don’t think that “cultivated” plants should be considered not eligible for ID confirmation (“research grade”), at least in an ideal world.
So I totally agree that in the context of an obs “making” research “grade”; “cultivated” is a perjorative label. I think we must differentiate between a cultivated and a wild organism, but I personally think both are deeply important obs to be making. I think the cactus on someones windowsill, or the forest of plantings, are both important parts of the ecosystems around them, this doesn’t stop being the case because people put them there. Other living things might eat them, pollinate them, decompose them, or compete with them (all plants use the limited resources of water, light and nutrients). In the places where most humans live, almost all of the woody plants (shrubs and trees) are cultivated. So, in my opinion, treating these plants as less scientifically meritorious to study is to ignore the keystone organisms in the ecosystems humans have the largest influence upon.
In other words, I think the distinction between wild and cultivated is deeply important, but I think discounting cultivated plants from research importance is a blind spot.
Having said all that, I can imagine why the iNat design is the way it is, and it’s maybe the best that can be done: There is nothing stopping a scientist from actually using records marked as not wild in research. And there is nothing stopping someone who wants to record cultivated species (or use the computer vision on them) from doing so. I’d also argue that the conservation value of populations of wild native plants completing their lifecycles in nature is incomparably more important than the populations of plants completing their lifecycles through cultivation.
And pragmatically; there is a backlog of “needs ID” obs, and the skills of people who can make accurate ID’s are in high demand. Do we want these skilled individuals spending time and energy giving ID’s of plants which came in a labelled pot? I dont. I’d love a world where this expertise is less scarce (and iNat itself is probably creating that world). So maybe what we’ve got is as good as it can be for now, but in the future we could have research grade be inclusive of obs of cultivated plants which have had a community vote on the data quality.
There is no such requirement for plants to be “spreading outside the intended gardening area”, that is merely one listed example of a wild plant on the Help page.
The quote comes from here: https://help.inaturalist.org/en/support/solutions/articles/151000169932-what-does-captive-cultivated-mean-
Note that it also lists “the descendents of plants that had been planted by humans” as an example of a wild plant, which would include plants even in gardens.
This! Functionally, so long as cultivated = casual, incapable of being research grade, cultivated on inaturalist is a pejorative. It revokes an observation’s access to common visibility and meaningful identification.
I work in and around restoration, and restorations only stay cultivated so long as someone remembers it was installed. It’s very mutable, and the whole notion (edit: in North America) hinges on assuming pre-settlement plants were never altered by people, which is objectively untrue. We have pecan trees that were planted prior to 1872. Should those be marked cultivated? The why are the plants around the pecan trees not also cultivated? Is burning prairies an act of cultivation?
In a practical senses local to me, there are no remnants prairies in the city of Chicago. Many of the top observed plant species in the city are prairie plants in city park natural areas. Some were planted three decades ago, some were planted three months ago, some are old but have recently been reseeded. Many have recently been burned and will be burned again. Tracking this, especially maintenance reseeding/replanting is a nightmare (ask me how I know).
Do you want identifiers to mark every single one cultivated, so the city of Chicago only research grade plants are weeds? Do you want identifiers to find the Forest Preserve or Park District work order records before making decisions? Both of these seem absurd to me. At the moment, most folks just seem to avoid marking cultivated unless the plant is very obviously in a highly cultivated garden bed. If we’re being honest, that is not following the rules exactly.
If you also are interested in this discussion, consider the feature request for not marking cultivated plants as no id needed:
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/make-captive-cultivated-not-automatically-no-id-needed/112