Information about PlantID.net

Bruce Homer-Smith has imported a number of my checklists into his PlantID.net platform, which offers three additional ways to view each checklist:

• His platform allows each checklist to be displayed in a number of different ways, including as an illustrated list, sometimes with ID tips, or a sort by common name.

• His platform also allows the user to search on plant characteristics such as flower color and plant type, and then create a smaller list of species that satisfy those characteristics. This can especially help beginning botanists to identify the species on each checklist.

• His list will also display on a phone well.

Specifically:

• the list in PlantID.net can be viewed ordered by common name, scientific name, plant family, or plant type (tree, shrub, fern, etc.)

• the list in PlantID.net can be presented as an illustrated list, a gallery view, or just text.

• the user can try to identify a plant from this list by selecting any or all of the following:

  • flower color

  • flower in bloom "today" or any given month

  • type of flowers - many petals, irregularly-shaped flowers, or lacking obvious petals

  • number of petals

  • type of leaves - alternate, opposite, basal, whorled, or succulent

  • plant type - tree, conifer, shrub, vine, herb, fern, or grass-like, and annual or perennial

  • a "Looks Like" selection such as clover, thistle, dandelion, and many others.

Each of my checklists that are available at PlantID.net have a link just above the checklist to the list in PlantID.net, along with a mention if there are any species that were omitted from his checklist. Omitted species are ones identified only to genus; hybrids; and taxa that are not in Calflora due to being newly-defined, or that have been synonymized with another taxon.

Bruce has a nicely-done six minute video showing how to use PlantID.net.

Here is an example of what you can do with one of those checklists, the Flora of Idyllwild Park.

First, it is important to note that Nemacladus parikhiae was not imported into PlantID.net, since it was only defined in 2020, and hasn't made it into Calflora yet. So it won't appear on any list from the version in PlantID.net.

There are 256 taxa in my checklist, 255 in the version at PlantID.net.

Of those 255 taxa, by selecting on life form, you can find that the list contains:

• 22 trees, of which 15 are broadleaf trees and 7 are conifers.

• 24 shrubs. Note that some plants can sometimes be trees, and sometimes shrubs, so there is overlap in the numbers of shrubs and trees.

• 5 vines.

• 165 herbaceous plants, which PlantID.net calls "flowers". There are actually 166 in my list, due to the omission of Nemacladus parikhiae in the PlantID.net list.

• 6 ferns.

• 39 grasses, sedges, and rushes, which PlantID.net lumps together and calls them "grasses".

You can also do fun things like asking how many shrubs have white flowers with five petals; there are nine of them in the Idyllwild Park Checklist.

Go to:

• Native and Introduced Plants of Southern California