real life druid – Lise Fracalossi

Dumb Plant Facts with Lise: the Stanky Red Trillium

It’s the most wonderful time of the year — when trilliums are in bloom! Since I can’t get out in the woods much right now, instead have some completely useless facts about red trilliums.

Red trillium (Trillium erectum), like all trilliums, is a monocot, meaning it arises from a seed with a single cotyledon or seed leaf. Most plants are dicots, which have seeds with two cotyledons, so this makes trilliums a little bit special. At least, when I was a young teenager, I thought monocots were pretty cool.

That probably says something about cool a teenager I was not.

Therefore trilliums are class Liliopsida (monocot)*, and order Liliales, both of which are fancy ways of saying, with varying degrees of freedom… “it’s kind of like a lily.” But rather than being a member of family Liliaceae, it’s a member of the bunchflower family, Melanthiaceae, which are described as — get this — “lilioid monocots.”

That is… “it’s kind of like a lily.” Boy, botanists are good at naming things.

* ^{Botanists will argue if monocots are a class or a clade. A clade is a category distinct from a taxa, based on a system of classification that is more focused on evolutionary relationships between plants than taxonomy traditionally is. (Except taxonomy is becoming more evolutionary-focused… okay, let’s not go into the whole weird conversation I had when I asked ChatGPT to explain cladistics to me). But for the purposes of this post — where I will never mention cladistics again! — let’s go with what iNaturalist says, which is that class Liliopsida = monocots.}

^{Also grasses are in class Liliopsida, too. LOOK I DON’T MAKE THE RULES.}

Have I lost you yet? No? Oh good. Let’s get into the actual dumb plant facts. Some these are about trilliums as a genus; some are more specific to red trilliums.

Every aerial structure in trilliums — leaves, sepals, petals, reproductive structures — comes in multiples of threes. Hence the “tri” in the name.

… Wait, I just realized… it’s basically “tri-lilium,” isn’t it? Botanists, you bastards.
As a super cool teenager (already established), I typed up the Mary Oliver poem “Trilliums” for a school assignment. (Which is technically about T. grandiflorum, the white trillium). In the process I discovered… each line is indented by three spaces. Mary Oliver, you magnificent bastard, I read your book! (Dream Work, New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1986)
T. erectum has a funky-looking six-lobed ovary with six stamens arranged around it. (See picture below). Again: multiples of three.

Closeup of red trillium, showed the male and female reproductive structures. — Closeup of red trillium’s male and female reproductive structures. Hubba hubba. Source: Wikipedia

This makes the red trillium monoecious, meaning it has both male and female reproductive structures on the same plant. (Hubba hubba). And since there’s only a single influorescence (a fancy way of saying “flower”), it is also a “perfect” or bisexual flower, having both pistils and stamens.

Thank you, botanists, for acknowledging the perfection of bisexuals. I’m ready for your hot take on elf-earred disaster bisexuals; call me 🤙

The flower of red trillium is malodorous, attracting carrion flies and beetles as pollinators! This is why one of the common names is “stinking benjamin.”

The fruit of red trillium is a berry. This means it a multitude of seeds surrounded by a fleshy pericarp (pulp). Just like a tomato, in fact!

… do not eat the trillium.
Unlike a tomato, however, the fruit of the red trillium has (surprise surprise) threefold symmetry in cross-section.
The seeds of red trillium are dispersed primarily by ants, who find the fleshy pulp of the fruit delicious, and throw out its numerous seeds in their middens.

Red trilliums, being bisexual, can self-pollinate (wait, you can’t?) However, they set seed more reliably when cross-pollinated. It’s hypothesized this is because it has a “self-incompatibility” mechanism, which a number of different plants have as an adaptation. Presumably this encourages genetic diversity?

Considering plants can reproduce asexually, they already have a lot to answer for when it comes to genetic diversity

Trilliums are morphologically “scapes,” meaning they produce no true leaves or stems above ground. (Think of a garlic scape… GODDAMNIT I ALREADY SAID DO NOT EAT THE TRILLIUM). The stem is just an extension of the rhizome, and the “leaves” are actual flower bracts. However, these bracts photosynthesize, and have the same internal and external structure as leaves, so for all intents and purposes… they’re leaves.

That’s all the dumb (red) trillium facts I’ve got, nature fiends. It’s breakfast time as I write this, so maybe I’ll go have a nice omelet now, with garlic and tomatoes AND DEFINITELY NOT TRILLIUMS.

_{Featured image: two red trilliums (Trillium erectum). Taken by Lise Fracalossi, May 1 2020, in Lane Conservation Area in Lunenburg, MA.}

Lise opines: plant identification apps

Or: why I use iNaturalist.

I constantly see posts from my Facebook friends (and even in native plant communities) asking for recommendations on mobile apps to identify plants.

Inevitably someone will pop up with PictureThis, or Google Lens, or even Seek. But here’s why I use iNaturalist.org‘s mobile app.

Free

PictureThis is ad-supported if you don’t give them money. The premium version ranges in price from $30-$50/year, depending on plan.

The last thing I want when I’m in the woods is ads. And while I am willing to spend money for apps that are valuable to me, nothing I’ve seen has convinced me the IDs are any higher quality than what I can get for free with iNaturalist. It’s also more than I spend per year for, say, Zombies Run!, which IMHO gives a lot more content (hundreds, if not thousands, of adjustable length and intensity story-driven workouts).

Also, don’t quote me on this, but I would venture that PictureThis is taking an API and/or computer vision model that is available for free — potentially even the one collated by the California Academy of Sciences (see below) — and profiting off it.

I haven’t really played around with Google Lens, but I imagine it has the same problem as any Google product — if you’re not paying for it, then you are the product. Plus my experience with Google is that as soon as they decide they no longer want to develop a product, well, fuck you, even if it’s a product millions of people use. (Google Reader, I’m looking at you).

Scope of IDs

Look, you know me. If I could do nothing all day but touch plants, I’d be pretty happy.

But I also like spiders, and snakes, and mushrooms, and birds and mammals. I don’t call myself a real life druid for no reason; I observe any living thing that will stand still for long enough to get a picture of it.

(Also poop and dead things, too, because I’m classy like that).

On the other end of the scale, Google Lens will identify anything. But that has its limitations, too. It’s hard to get accurate predictions when your model includes every picture posted on the Google-curated internet. What happens when your plant happens to look like a snake — an example I came across recently? It’s not super helpful.

(In its defense have found it very useful for “hey I took a picture of this famous building in England and I have totally forgotten what it is, please help me, Architect Google!”)

Non-profit and mission-driven

Both Seek and iNaturalist meet the criteria above:

They’re truly free
They ID not just plants, but any form of life

But it’s more than that. Both are developed by the California Academy of Sciences, a non-profit organization with this mission:

The mission of the California Academy of Sciences is to regenerate the natural world through science, learning, and collaboration.

CalAcademy has a ton of different initiatives, but they are perhaps best known for their their computer vision algorithm tuned specifically to the natural world. That includes all kinds of life, from protists to blue whales!

Moreover, that model, like machine learning models everywhere, learns from user contribution. Those user observations are made available, for free, through the GBIF API, which is used by thousands of different organizations to conduct scientific research.

The way I look at it is: By using Seek or iNaturalist, you are contributing to the mission of regenerating the natural world.

Feels good, man.

Community science

So why choose iNaturalist over Seek? After all, the Seek app is definitely slicker of the two apps — it has gamification! By comparison, the iNat app looks clunky and buggy.

One big reason pertains to community/citizen science. When you observe something with Seek, it uses the CalAcademy CV model to identify your form of life, but it does not save that observation. You might learn from it — and certainly there’s value in that! — but you’re not helping the machine learning algorithm you know. Learn.

(For that matter, it’s debatable how much it helps you learn. I get a lot of value from going back through my old observations in iNat to remind myself where and when I observed something).

On top of that, Seek is pretty much just the CV model. Once you’ve made an ID, that’s it, you’re done. But on iNat, once you’ve made a preliminary ID, that’s where the fun begins.

See, once you’ve posted the observation, other people — real humans! — can come in and refine that ID. If you posted something that the CV could only ID to genus level, maybe some nice expert comes in and says, “hey you can tell X and Y species apart from the leaves; looks like X to me!”

When two other users confirm or refine your tentative ID to the species level, it is labeled “research grade.” Research grade observations are available in GBIF — helping science across the world! — and are used to train newer versions of the CV model.

And you are the expert! Know a lot about the trilliums of Massachusetts? Go identify trilliums! (That feature is website only currently. Alas). It’s yet another way you can use iNat to give back to citizen science.

Other nice to haves

Since iNat is community supported, you can use it to ID, say, birds by song. I’ve had a lot of luck recording birdsong in a voice memo, uploading it to iNat, tagging it as class Aves, and letting the birders have a go. Birders on iNat are an enthusiastic lot, and usually I’ll have an ID within minutes.
iNaturalist itself has an API (not the same as GBIF, I don’t think?) which allows you to write your own algorithm against iNat data. I’ve seen people use it to write nature quiz webapps; at one point in time I considered using it to answer the question of “how many taxa did I ID for the first time in 2020?”
As I mentioned earlier, iNat is a website first, and an app second. Maybe this is a con for you, I don’t know. But when I’m, you know, IDing trilliums of Massachusetts, it helps to see them on a big screen with a keyboard that allows me to write comments and use shortcuts.
Similar to what I mentioned above: Seek is video-based and real time; it does not save or import images to your photo app. iNaturalist can work on a live image, but most often I take the photos and ID them later.

Here’s a good comparison of the two apps.

Value to my life

This is unquantifiable, but in the early pandemic, iNaturalist saved my life. When I couldn’t go anywhere or do anything, I went to the woods. I took pictures, and I participated in socially distanced bioblitzes, and identified hundreds of species. I didn’t stop using it after the pandemic, either. I’m now up to over a thousand observations across three countries and two continents.

(“What happens when you reach 1000 observations on iNat?” my friend Scott asked. I replied: “They send you a letter informing you that you’re legally a nerd”).

Could another app have done this? Maybe. But for me, it was iNat.

tl;dr: this is why I use iNaturalist, and donate $10/month to CalAcademy, even though I absolutely don’t need to.

Have I won you over? Go download the iNaturalist app for iOS or Android!

Dumb Plant Facts with Lise: the shit rose Multiflora

(In fulfillment of day 7 of Words in May)

Multiflora rose — whose Latin name is Rosa multiflora, logically enough — is kind of a shit rose.

It is native to east Asia, but definitely not North America, where it has become wildly invasive.

… if you know me at all, you know I have a bee in my bonnet about the term “invasive,” but my definition of a shitty invasive is “can I find it naturalized in woodlands behind my house?”

And indeed I can. Especially in reclaimed areas, you can find thickets of it and Asiatic bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus) intertwined, choking out native plants and doing its shitty best to give me the 3.476 thorn scratches I am required to display after every walk through woods.

Why the heck is it even in this country? It is yet another example of “let’s bring in a non-native plant to help with an ecological problem…. WELL I GUESS THAT BACKFIRED.” The problem was soil erosion; now you have the problem that is UP TO MY EYEBALLS IN SHIT ROSES.

You see it a lot in reclaimed farmlands, where it was used extensively as a cattle brake. Why? This might surprise you, but it turns out that cows don’t like running face first into a wall of thorns.

This is the Wei. My mom had a Chinese exchange student named Wei (first tone, straight line over the “i” in Pinyin). We were trying to figure out what her name translated to; she knew it was a type of flower but she didn’t know the translation in English. So she asked Chinese-language Google, and lo and behold, it means “multiflora rose.”

… it’s an awkward conversation to tell someone they share a name with an invasive species. Usually I only have those conversations with leshy in my Pathfinder games.

The way to tell multiflora rose apart from other, less shit roses? Well, for one thing it has large inflorescences. That’s a botany way of saying “big-ass flowers.” They are usually white, too, and there are lots of them on a single branch.

But my favorite ONE WEIRD TRICK to identifying multiflora rose? The petiole (leaf stalk) looks like a feather:

In conclusion: multiflora rose: unless you have cattle, absolutely no good will come of having this in your yard.