Muddying the waters here further, but I wish there were a naturalized designation. Being cultivated in a garden versus being cultivated in a natural setting with a 100 year harvest cycle would seem to fix some of the problems with the lack of research grade for the “captive/cultivated” category. Na…

Well, naturalized implies that a species was not known before a clear point of human-aided introduction. And yes, some species have been around for hundreds of years, from an original introduction. But if that introduction is known, regardless of how long ago it was, that species is not native. It’s…

That kinda proves what I feel about it, you need knowledge about whole species to imply that status for your iNat observation, and can not know some facts about it, so it’s not something all regular users would have been able to use as it’s much harder than what we have now.

That’s exactly what it is. But if you don’t know, there’s usually ample ways to find out by researching the species. Local guides, internet, and so on. It’s never been a straight-forward concept, really. But worst case there’s people you can ask for second opinions, so it’s not a problem if you mark…

Out of curiosity, what about plants used for restoration - for example, a meadow that has been seeded in a nature preserve/protected area for the purposes of restoring that site to either a historic state or other wildlife goal, using plants that are technically native to the region but are either r…

[image] mollymjacobson: … which are technically native to New York (for example, where I am) but are rarely encountered in the wild here. These meadows persist and become self-sustaining with generations of the original transplants/seeds, with the management goal of making a ‘wild’ meadow as wil…

If we talk about current state of iNat all seeded and planted ones are not wild, but all the new ones are wild, if you’re not sure about it I doubt there’s a big problem in leaving them as wild. It’s not any different than any other replanted area in the world, just harder to find out what was plant…

[image] mollymjacobson: I do grapple with all of this! What difficulties arise in assigning conservation status, or even determining ranges, of plants when it may no longer be easy to tell where a plant ‘originally’ grew in a region, with so many populations originating, at some point, from plan…

Yes there are always going to be unknowns. Many plants are changing their ranges naturally, so a new county record could be the result of natural spread. Though many of the changes are attributed to climate change so some would argue they are not natural. On the other hand, seed mixes will contain …

Just for fun: What if I have a rare native plant in my yard, and then I sell that property and move to the next county over where the species wasn’t previously known (or was it?), but I inadvertently carried some seeds on my shoe, and it got established in my new yard one county away, but then I de…

"Wild" vs. "planted" vs. "naturalized"

General

raymie October 14, 2021, 7:41pm 103

You say just kidding but there’s definitive answers to all of those.

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"Wild" vs. "planted" vs. "naturalized"

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