March KYBBY Update
KYBBY in Numbers
Here's how the Kentucky Botanists Big Year project is shaping up so far in 2022:
- 32 dedicated plant nerds (project members)
- 1,105 Research Grade observations of plants
- 228 Research Grade species
The current leaderboard for most Research Grade Species is:
- @ruthsworld (64)
- @gage_barnes (56)
- @ktuttlewheeler (56)
- @terrikoontz (51)
- @john_abrams (47)
- @sbrockway (39)
- @hbraunreiter (37)
- @jklmiller (32)
- @berg000 (27)
- @sal77o (25)
Note: the KNPS BotanyBlitz is from April 2-9 and the City Nature Challenge is April 29-May 2, so I expect we'll see a significant increase in observations and species over the next month and a few days. Will there be a leaderboard shakeup?? Who will reveal themselves as the dark horse iNatters in Kentucky this year?? Only time will tell, and I'm certainly looking forward to finding out.
In March, the most frequently observed plants in Kentucky (all obs included, not limited to the KYBBY) were:
- Virginia spring beauty (Claytonia virginica)
- red deadnettle (Lamium purpureum)
- rue anemone (Thalictrum thalictroides)
- cutleaf toothwort (Cardamine concatenata)
- hairy bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta)
Rare species and interesting finds
Kentucky iNatters have wasted no time this year in observing rare species, here are just a few that have been seen recently:
- snow trillium, state endangered (lots of obs, always a fan favorite)
- dainty Kentucky glade cress, state endangered
- nodding rattlesnake root -- this is a species that was formerly listed as Special Concern in Kentucky, but was “demoted” this spring to mere Watchlist status, thanks in no small part to the numerous iNatters who’ve helped document many new populations over the last few years, including @flyingbearjmh, @leighmaynard, @john_abrams, @ruthsworld, @b_georgic, @beargrass, @debunkshy, @emerlee, @laurabaird, @margaridamaria, @markjj1261, @meganclere, @mtwyandell, @rhyz0, @robert1971, and @sekistler
- We’ve also already had TWO new county records of rare plants made on iNat in 2022: Smallflower baby blue eyes observed by @gage_barnes in Trigg Co, and Prostrate blue violet seen by @laurabaird in Mercer Co, both are state threatened species. If you’re interested in checking out more rare species observations in the state, head on over to the Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves’ project Kentucky Plants of Conservation Concern.
- @gage_barnes also discovered a curious, adventive population of Narrowleaf miner’s lettuce right in the middle of Murray, Ky -- this is a species native to the western US (see BONAP map) with sparsely documented occurrences in several states bordering the Mississippi River. This is the first time it has ever been documented in Kentucky. What a cool find!
Help Identify
The iNat community is 100% reliant on volunteer effort to QA/QC observations, and observations must reach Research Grade to qualify in the KYBBY. Wherever you’re able to confidently do so, please help out your fellow botanizers by identifying or confirming their observations. If you like, you can filter by taxa you’re most comfortable with, whether it’s a species like Virginia bluebells (Mertensia virginica), a genus like violets (Viola), or a family like Campanulaceae. You can also filter by your county if you’re interested in focusing on observations in your locality. All identification assistance is greatly appreciated, and whatever you can contribute-- from identifying to species to simply refining broad IDs -- helps to improve the accuracy and completeness of iNaturalist data from Kentucky. Many thanks to @john_abrams, @davidenrique, @abelkinser, @jrichardabbott, @mjpapay, @burls, @ktuttlewheeler, @moritz3, @smschnerremd, @albach, @trscavo, @choess who have all made more than 50 identifications on other folks' plant observations in Kentucky this year!
And remember -- do tag all houseplants, garden plants, and those that are part of a landscaping arrangement (presence of mulch is a good clue) as captive/cultivated. This helps keep species range maps representative of only wild and naturally-occurring organisms.
Here's a link to the Identify Mode page, I've filtered it for all plant observations in Kentucky that still need ID's to reach RG, you may want to bookmark it!
-->Identify plants in Kentucky
Upcoming Kentucky Native Plant Society events
To kickoff the week-long KNPS BotanyBlitz, a number of iNat tutorial hikes are being held across the Commonwealth on April 1 & 2. There’s still time to register if you’re interested in attending a hike, so check out the list of locations for a hike near you!
Will you be joining us at Natural Bridge State Park on April 8 & 9 for Wildflower Weekend 2022? There’s still time to register for this event as well, we hope to see you there!
And now for the pics!
Here are a few that caught my eye recently, make sure to "favorite" any pics that make you swoon to highlight lovely photos or interesting finds!
Dreamy red trillium by @dperkins
Pretty in pink rue anemone by @john_abrams
Leatherwood’s charming lemon-drop flowers by @kmvowels
White troutlily struggling to get out of its leaf sweater by @jklmiller
Wood betony in pink and red by @meleagle
If you're an active botanizer in Kentucky
You should be a part of this project! Visit the project page here: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/kentucky-botanists-big-year-2022 and click "Join" in the top right corner. See you on the trails!
Vanessa
Comments
@ahproff, @annek, @berg000, @biomania, @dakotaross, @dperkins, @gage_barnes, @hbraunreiter, @jeff85, @jklmiller, @joewitschy, @john_abrams, @jon_neal, @karina430, @kmvowels, @ktuttlewheeler, @ky2c2t, @laurabaird, @m_whitson, @ns_mar, @nyssa_ogeche, @preslid, @reupurtbones, @ruthsworld, @sal77o, @sbrockway, @sekistler, @tararoselittlefield, @terrikoontz, @tjmc, @waywardwes
Another rare species in KY (state rank S1): Ozark Trillium (Trillium pusillum var. ozarkanum) observed by @hbraunreiter
@trscavo That too, and a beauty! I try to exclude obs from the heritage botanists in highlights because we know where everything is and have an unfair advantage ;)
I loved the "interesting finds" section, I wish I could go back and read the previous years! Great idea to document and keep up with new discoveries.
This is fantastic!!! I love this so much! :) Thanks for putting this effort into our Kentucky Botanist iNaturalist community @vvoelker and everyone! So exciting...I think I check iNat more than Facebook these days hahahaha!
@masebrock @nyssa_ogeche Thanks you two! There's a lot of great botanizing happening in the state, I'm excited to be able to bring it to everyone's attention :)
Great post and I love this project for bringing together KY plant lovers on inaturalist! So I know this isn't the Olympics and this is just for fun but for the Top 5 identifiers, does that include people who aren't in the project and happen to identify a lot of project members' observations (burls for example)?
@kentuckyheartwood Yup, for the top and winning identifiers, it's anyone's game -- no need to be in the project or even based in Kentucky. And actually like @burls, many of our MVP identifiers over the years have been non-Kentuckians!
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