Geophyte Club

Geophyte Club

Geophyte Club Challenge
The first rule of Geophyte Club is: You DO NOT talk about Geophyte Club
The second rule of Geophyte Club is: You DO NOT talk about Geophyte Club…
WE’RE BREAKING THE RULES!
Geophytes are perennial plants that store resources in underground organs: usually bulbs in a broad sense, but also tubers, corms or rhizomes. They can wait out drought or poor growing conditions underground and emerge when the time is right.

What makes some geophytes fire followers? Geophytes survive burning because the storage organs are below ground protected from burning, but they also emerge en masse after fire from chemical or light cues, particularly in chaparral. One of the first plants to respond this year was soaproot (Chlorogalum), and we’ve seen amazing displays of geophytes of all types through this whole year.

Challenge Details:
Starting this week on Wednesday June 30, 2021 we will be holding our Geophyte Club challenge! As always, we strongly encourage you all to go out and make observations, however, this week we will be focusing on identifications! You will have until July 7th to make as many identifications as possible! We will be focusing specifically the following:
Asparagales (Agaves/Lilies, Orchids, Irises, and Allies)
Manroots (Marah)

The search links above will direct you to a list of those specific plants.
The top 3 identifiers of the listed plants above will be rewarded with a Fire Followers Shirt!

You’re tagged in this post because you are among some of the top identifiers for Asparagales and we hope you take part in helping identify some of the observations made so far!

1) As a reminder, even if you do not know the species, you can help by identifying the observation to a finer level such as identifying the family, which is extremely helpful for others. Also, feel free to use the comment section to let others know what you're thinking! There are also approximately 18,800 observations that need an ID! Out of those 18,800, ~80 Marah need ID and ~780 are Asparagales of which we are considering Agaves/Lilies, Orchids, Irises, and Allies.

2)You can help by confirming IDs that have already been made, refining IDs from general to more specific and correcting mis-identifications. The Suggestions tab will offer similar plants seen in the area--make sure you check it’s a good match.
3) To find likely mis-identifications, look at the Species tab of one of the fire areas you know pretty well. Scroll down to the bottom and look at the plants that only have one or two observations. Check on any out of range observations or plants you know are ornamental.

@rupertclayton @jrebman @graysquirrel @catchang @grnleaf @rynxs @arethusa @cwbarrows @matt_g @afid @sganley @kueda @catullus @jlmartin @finatic @lallen @lagoondon @birgitknorr @yuriydanilevsky @efmer @morganstickrod @boschniakia @arboretum_amy @diego4nature @paloma
@kevinhintsa @andyjones1 @glmory @charlie @serpophaga @loarie @ronvanderhoff @susanmf @oxalismtp @blue_celery @smfang @danieldas @cedric_lee @lonnyholmes @najera_tutor @birdgal5 @tiwane @rynaturalist @hikingsandiego @nelruzam @sapienshane @snakeinmypocket @sekihiker @nofrakes @milliebasden

Posted on June 29, 2021 03:59 PM by jaesparza11 jaesparza11

Comments

I'm in. Oops. No, I mean - Shhhhhhh

Posted by sekihiker over 2 years ago

Woo-hoo! Great idea. Probably shouldn't let me near the Marah IDs though. I haven't quite mastered those.

Are all Asparagales in scope, or just the groups you linked to @jaesparza11? (This is the full list of 600+ Needs ID Asparagales observations within the California Fire Followers 2020 project.)

Posted by rupertclayton over 2 years ago

Hi @sekihiker, glad to have you join us!

Great question @rupertclayton, we picked the groups linked so that it would be easier to keep count and keep track of the top identifiers at the end of the challenge.

Posted by jaesparza11 over 2 years ago

Thanks @jaesparza11. It looks like those groups are using a text search, so "Lilies" turns up anything with "lily" in the common name, which is a bit different than Lilium species. "Allies" comes up with all the Tribes and Familes that have names in the format "... and Allies". Did you want Allium species?

How about doing this at subfamily level: Agavoideae, Lilioideae, Orchidoideae, Iridoideae and Allioideae

Sorry if you intended something different and I'm not getting the point!

Posted by rupertclayton over 2 years ago

Hey @rupertclayton, thanks for letting me know and for providing those links! I was not aware that the links I provided above included anything with the text in the common name!

The subfamily links do work and is what we are looking for but it just leaves out some important subfamilies as well.

The point of providing the search links in the first place was just to make it easier for users to identify without having to isolate geophytes from the 14k+ plant observations that still need ID!
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&project_id=california-fire-followers-2020&quality_grade=needs_id&subview=table&verifiable=any&iconic_taxa=Plantae

Anyways, I'll remove the individual links from above to clear confusion and include this link for Asparagales which you provided above!
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&project_id=california-fire-followers-2020&quality_grade=needs_id&subview=table&taxon_id=47218&verifiable=any

Thanks again for the help!

Posted by jaesparza11 over 2 years ago

Sure, why not. I already do IDs, so why not get a free T-shirt?

Posted by snakeinmypocket over 2 years ago

Thank you everyone who participated during the challenge! There were ~5600+ ID counts made throughout this entire week which is about a 50% increase from the previous 4 weeks averaged with these specific parameters!

I want to thank these 4 winners this week for having the most IDs:
@rupertclayton
@jrebman
@morganstickrod
@catchang
I have already contacted you all individually. Be sure to respond soon to receive your shirts!

Thanks again for everyone who helped ID plants this week! Stay tuned for more interesting challenges coming up! Just as a reminder, there are approximately 18,400 observations that still require ID: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&project_id=california-fire-followers-2020&quality_grade=needs_id&subview=table&verifiable=any

Thanks!

Posted by jaesparza11 over 2 years ago

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