One of the best on-line resources for finding information about plants and places of botanical interest in California is Calflora (https://www.calflora.org/). Calflora can help you discover what species occur in a particular area, learn about the ecology and horticultural potential of species, and much more.
Among the many features in Calflora are tools for individuals to add location-specific observations and photos of plants seen in California. A recent email from Calflora on this topic is HERE. Observations can be added by uploading the information and photos directly to Calflora or by assimilating observations previously added to iNaturalist.
Photos added directly to Calflora will be available as reference photos on the “Taxon Report” pages, whereas images imported from iNaturalist will not, and they will appear in the search results on the “Observation Search” page only if you check “iNaturalist” under “Other Sources.”
On the other hand, observations posted first in iNaturalist will be:
– confirmed by at least one other person to become “research grade” before it is eligible for assimilation into the Calflora database, and
– assimilated into the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), which is another aggregator of biodiversity data.
On the iNaturalist site, search areas can cross state and national boundaries and can include other organisms besides plants.
Instructions for how to import your observations from iNaturalist to Calflora are HERE. The “Add Records from iNaturalist” feature is HERE (you will need to register as a contributor to Calflora first). Basically, an application running within the Calflora web site will look at your iNaturalist account, search for observations matching Calflora’s required criteria and any other date or taxon filters you wish to add, and display a list of your qualifying observations and photos.
These search results will include:
– Research Grade records of wild plants made in California (thus excluding “casual” and “needs ID” observations, non-plant organisms, and observations outside California).
– Records with a Creative Commons (CC) license on both the photo and the observation (allowing them to be used by others for non-commercial purposes).
The search results will not include:
– Records of rare plants (those with obscured locations).
– Records already assimilated into Calflora.
Once this table is displayed, you simply click on each “ID” number, then click “add to Calflora” in the fly-out menu (as in the screenshot below). Calflora imports the taxon name, location, your photographs, and some other details, including a link back to your iNaturalist observation.
My search found about 460 iNaturalist observations meeting these criteria, which I then added to Calflora. It took only a few minutes. This can be done a few times a year—as you post new observations to iNaturalist and as more observations have their IDs confirmed so that they become “research grade”.
Once you have finished the import, your observations will be included on the results page of a “What Grows Here” search along with data from other individuals, herbarium databases, and other sources (be sure to click “display” for each of the icons under “Points”). Here’s an example, using the “Simple” display format (plant names only, no photos):
Calflora is a rich resource with an abundance of maps, lists, localized data, and external links for learning about California’s plants and places to see them. Features in Calflora (or accessible through external links) that differ from what iNaturalist provides include:
– mapped locations of georeferenced collections held in California herbaria,
– species range maps,
– ecological and horticultural information (including the suitability of any species for planting in any location),
– links to a wider variety of external sources,
… and probably much more.
Check it out, spend some time exploring its many features, and import your iNaturalist observations to Calflora.
Lupinus breweri var. bryoides, on a hill south of Bodie
Copyright © Tim Messick 2023. All rights reserved.
Plants of the Bodie Hills 