Observation of the Month: Nightshade (Solanum sp.) Solanaceae

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/8708561

Artificial intelligence (AI) has arrived on iNat! Perhaps you have noticed that when you place your cursor in the identification field, you get a drop down list of suggestions. This can be a great help, but can also be misleading. Currently, some of the suggestions you will find for observations made in San Diego County include plants that may look similar to your observation, but that do not occur in our area. For this observation of a Solanum species, the suggestions provided from the AI feature on iNat include four species of nightshade that do not occur in San Diego County. The plant is likely one of the other suggested species: S. nigrum, S. americanum, or S. douglasii. Although a lovely photograph, the one photo submitted unfortunately does not provide enough information to identify this plant to species for which length of anthers, size of seeds, and presence of glandular hairs are important characteristics. See our prior post on What to Photograph for tips to improve the likelihood of species identification.

Posted on 01 de fevereiro de 2018, 03:14 PM by milliebasden