Making Meaningful Identifications
There are lots of users going through and just identifying plants as "Plants" (Plantae and Tracheophyta). That is hardly useful, and does not really contribute anything of value to the identification process. It would be better to leave them as unidentified until someone knowledgeable put then in a useful bin - ideally Family or lower.
However that does not mean that they cannot be meaningfully identified.
There are three major areas where you can assist in moving these token identifications to a more useful identification.
Trees
Trees are easy to identify as trees, and then a lot harder to ID further.
However, the ID of "Tree" is extremely useful as fewer than 10% of our plant species in Africa are trees, and there are specialists, enthusiasts and locals who know their trees better than any other plants. And their are field guides to trees, which assists in further identification.
The easiest way to facilitate this, is to add a tree observation to a "Tree Project"
We do have one for southern Africa, which despite its name, has no geographical restriction. Although based on our field guides, it would perhaps be best to keep it to southern Africa, and create a new one for our other floral regions. On the other hand, it is so easy to filter by region, should we rather not just use this single project or all our African trees?
Let us try the latter route: if it gets unwieldy, we can create more tree projects (or if you would prefer to do so anyway, please do so and tell us).
The project to add is
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/trees-of-southern-africa-id
you need to first join it, and then you can add it to any observation (except those users who restrict adding projects to their observations)
So instead of just putting a meaningless ID of "Plant" onto an observation of what is clearly a tree, please add a tree project (you can add the higher ID too if you want, but it is purely superfluous as the tree enthusiasts will almost certainly use the project first).
Here are some trees, that have been identified as trees, but not linked to any project.
(Unfortunately, the curation tool is not project friendly, and you will need to pop out the observation to add a project. (a way around this is to add a comment and later filter for comments and add the project).
These are identified as trees by the AI. Not all are trees, but most are. They have not yet been put into the Trees project.
- CUT 1: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?not_in_project=trees-of-southern-africa-id&place_id=any&project_id=unknown-trees-of-southern-africa-1&quality_grade=needs_id,casual&verifiable=any
6,600 obs - CUT 2: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?captive=any&place_id=any&project_id=unknown-trees-of-southern-africa-2&verifiable=any¬_in_project=trees-of-southern-africa-id
5,100 obs
Note that there is a tree project for southern Africa, based on identified trees. You may find it useful:
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/trees-of-southern-africa-list
Details are here: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/trees-of-southern-africa-list/journal/73560-welcome
Here are trees that need their ID confirmed - please help if you can:
52,000 observations on 1 August
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?verifiable=any&page=3&spam=false&place_id=113055&quality_grade=needs_id&list_id=3196131
(Sorry, as adding lists is very time consuming, we dont yet have projects for our other African regions. If you would like to volunteer some time (it will take several days if you have an up-to-date tree list), please enquire).
Lichens
Please remember to identify Lichens as Lecanoromycetes (= Lichens) rather than simply is Fungi.
Yes, not all Lichens are in this group, but almost all of them are: so the specialists will reidentify in those few cases.
Observations with more detailed suggestions that can be easily checked
The AI has provided identifications for these observations to a level below their current ID on iNaturalist. Not all these IDs are correct, but most should be able to be taken to a further level - to where specialists can access them:
(only groups with more than 20 observations are listed)
[a million thanks to @jeanphilippeb - a pity iNaturalist cannot automate this identification to some degree - all the below are thanks to Jean-Philippe]
DICOTS 8,600 observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?verifiable=any&project_id=155123&lrank=superclass&place_id=97392
Mimosoideae 700 observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=casual%2Cneeds_id&place_id=97392&verifiable=any&project_id=153478&lrank=epifamily
Euphorbiaceae 420 observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=casual%2Cneeds_id&verifiable=any&project_id=154662&lrank=epifamily&place_id=97392
Fabaceae 410 observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=casual%2Cneeds_id&verifiable=any&project_id=153483&place_id=97392&lrank=epifamily
MONOCOTS 390 observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=casual%2Cneeds_id&place_id=97392&verifiable=any&project_id=155291&lrank=superclass
Lamiales 380 observationshttps://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=casual%2Cneeds_id&place_id=97392&verifiable=any&project_id=154691&lrank=epifamily
Poaceae 360 observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=casual%2Cneeds_id&place_id=97392&verifiable=any&project_id=155163&lrank=epifamily
Polypodiales some fern knowledge required - 330 observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=casual%2Cneeds_id&place_id=97392&verifiable=any&project_id=154719&lrank=superorder
Crassulaceae 280 observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=casual%2Cneeds_id&place_id=97392&verifiable=any&project_id=152123&lrank=epifamily
Asparagoidea 260 observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=casual%2Cneeds_id&verifiable=any&project_id=155236&place_id=97392&lrank=epifamily
Combretaceae 200 observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?verifiable=any&lrank=epifamily&place_id=any&place_id=97392&project_id=154650
Sapindales 200 observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=casual%2Cneeds_id&place_id=97392&verifiable=any&project_id=154622&lrank=epifamily
Agavoideae 160 observations https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=casual%2Cneeds_id&place_id=any%2C97392&verifiable=any&project_id=153934&lrank=epifamily
Anthospermae 100 observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=casual%2Cneeds_id&place_id=any%2C97392&verifiable=any&project_id=154840&lrank=family
Hibisceae 100 observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=casual%2Cneeds_id&place_id=97392&verifiable=any&project_id=154654&lrank=epifamily
Tetragonia100 observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=casual%2Cneeds_id&place_id=any%2C97392&verifiable=any&project_id=154978&lrank=epifamily
Rutaceae 80 observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=casual%2Cneeds_id&place_id=97392&verifiable=any&project_id=154620&lrank=epifamily
Campanuloideae 75 observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=casual%2Cneeds_id&place_id=any%2C97392&verifiable=any&project_id=154992&lrank=epifamily
Vitaceae 66 observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=casual%2Cneeds_id&place_id=97392&verifiable=any&project_id=155089&lrank=epifamily
Iridaceae 46 observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?captive=any&lrank=epifamily&place_id=97392&project_id=155226&verifiable=any
Eucalypteae 45 observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=casual%2Cneeds_id&place_id=97392&verifiable=any&project_id=154646&lrank=epifamily
Mimoseae 42 observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=casual%2Cneeds_id&place_id=97392&verifiable=any&project_id=153488&lrank=epifamily
Alismatales 40 observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=casual%2Cneeds_id&place_id=97392&verifiable=any&project_id=155290&lrank=epifamily
Rosaceae 35 observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=casual%2Cneeds_id&place_id=97392&verifiable=any&project_id=154627&lrank=epifamily
Pedeliaceae 34 observations https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=casual%2Cneeds_id&place_id=any%2C97392&verifiable=any&project_id=154807&lrank=epifamily
Urticaceae 32 observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?captive=any&lrank=epifamily&place_id=97392&project_id=154623&verifiable=any
Myricaceae 30 observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=casual%2Cneeds_id&verifiable=any&project_id=154874&lrank=epifamily&place_id=97392
Scrophulariaceae 24 observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=any&place_id=any%2C97392&verifiable=any&project_id=154671&lrank=epifamily
Malvales 22 observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?verifiable=any&lrank=superfamily&place_id=97392&project_id=154658
Bombacoideae 20 observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=casual%2Cneeds_id&place_id=97392&verifiable=any&project_id=154656&lrank=epifamily
Loganaceae 19 observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=any&place_id=any%2C97392&verifiable=any&project_id=154847&lrank=epifamily
