Online Resources for Plant Identification
It’s only a week till the New England Plant ID-a-thon begins, so I thought it would be a good idea to tell you about some of the online resources you can use to help you identify a plant. I’m sure many of you know more such resources than I do, so please add them into the comments. Books – real, actual on-paper books – are even better, in my opinion, but the taxonomy can quickly go out of date, just to warn you.
Go Botany: https://gobotany.nativeplanttrust.org/
Of course, Go Botany is, in my opinion, the go-to resource for plant IDs in New England. There are usually several photos for each species, plus the sidebars on similar species give very helpful characters for distinguishing among look-alike plants.
iNaturalist taxa pages: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa
Each species in the iNaturalist database has a taxon page, with photos from iNat observations, a map of observations, and sections with general information, taxonomy, conservation status, and similar species. The similar species section can be particularly helpful in alerting an identifier to common mistakes. For example, under similar species for Blue Cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides), the first suggestion is Early Blue Cohosh (C. giganteum), not surprisingly.
Spruces:
https://www.maine.gov/dacf/mfs/publications/handbooks_guides/forest_trees/pdf/Spruce.pdf
Pat Swain alerted me to this handy summary of the differences among the spruce species we usually see in the wild in New England.
Natural Heritage Programs:
The Maine and Massachusetts Natural Heritage programs in New England have produced descriptive species summaries for the plants listed in those states. Often these fact sheets describe how to tell the rare plant from its commoner congeners, so the fact sheets can be quite useful that way. Here are the links to the lists of those fact sheets.
Maine – https://www.maine.gov/dacf/mnap/features/rare_plants/plantlist.htm
Massachusetts – https://www.mass.gov/info-details/list-of-endangered-threatened-and-special-concern-species#plants
All of the Massachusetts fact sheets discuss similar species and how to distinguish them/ Here are links to a few of the Massachusetts fact sheets that may prove useful, just to get you started:
Agrimonies: https://www.mass.gov/doc/small-flowered-agrimony/download
Asclepias (milkweeds): https://www.mass.gov/doc/purple-milkweed/download
Carex: There are 30 Carex species currently listed under the Massachusetts Endangered Species Act, and the online fact sheet for each one discusses identifying the rare species from its commoner relatives. Here’s a link to Gray’s Sedge as an example, because I often see people on iNaturalist labeling C. intumescens as C. grayi and this fact sheet has great photos to help in ID: https://www.mass.gov/doc/grays-sedge/download
Huperzia (fir-mosses): https://www.mass.gov/doc/appalachian-firmoss/download
Rhododendron: Many of the evergreen rhododendron observation on iNaturalist are of garden hybrids or varieties, and sometimes those are identified as Great Rhododendron, R. maximum. Great Rhododendron is state-listed in Massachusetts, this fact sheet may be helpful in distinguishing that species from garden plants: https://www.mass.gov/doc/great-laurel/download
Sanicula (sanicles): https://www.mass.gov/doc/clustered-sanicle/download
Comments
Lynn, great writeup!
I also primarily use gobotany as my online resource. The other site I use pretty frequently for photos to reference is Alexey Zinovjev and Irina Kadis's website http://www.salicicola.com/ . Clicking Massachusetts Vascular Plants on that page opens a pretty comprehensive list of our local species sorted taxonomically. Using iNat works for this too but with their site I can be 100% the species is correct, and often their pictures highlight their identifying features.
For books, I will go back and forth between a bunch.
Flora Novae Angliae by Arthur Haines is essentially the same as Gobotany, but sometimes it feels good to have a book in hand.
Wildflowers of New England by Ted Elliman & New England Wild Flower Society
Newcomb's Wildflower Guide by Lawrence Newcomb
Peterson's Guide to Wildflowers: Northeastern and North-central North America by Roger Tory Peterson and Margaret McKenny - I especially like this one for goldenrods as it focuses on the vegetative portion of the plants
Peterson's Guide to Ferns: Northeastern and North-central North America by Cobb/Farnsworth/Lowe - great for ferns and also includes other primitive plants like clubmosses, horsetails, and quillworts
Beware, between books you may begin to pull your hair out figuring out the correct scientific name of there have been significant changes over the years. I've spent considerable time on saltwort/Russian thistle and still have no clue what species/subspecies is correct for our local coastal variety! (S. kali kali maybe?)
@natemarchessault, I shall add Alexey and Irina's site to my list of great resources - thanks!
And I, too, love a good book in hand. My Newcomb's has all sorts of notations about what's listed in Massachusetts, how the dogbanes were lumped, what the current(ish) names are, and so on. I have quite a few graminoid books, too, but that information still has barely begun to sink in!
Add a Comment