25 de febrero de 2024

New Western Australian Isopogon changes

In January 2024, a new paper came out with some important changes in what are referred to as the Isopogon spathulatus and Isopogon polycephalus complexes. The paper is accessible here: https://doi.org/10.1002/tax.13129. Also noting two of the authors, @bmichanderson and @botanistbob, are on iNat, so congrats to them both!

To summarise the changes:

1 . Isopogon pallidus is newly described. This species was previously referred to as the phrase name Isopogon sp. Darling Range (F. Hort 1662).

2 . Isopogon elatus is newly described. This species was previously referred to as the phrase name Isopogon sp. Ravensthorpe (D.B. Foreman 1207).

3 . Two subspecies of Isopogon spathulatus were newly described, and thus of course Isopogon spathulathus subsp. spathulatus also now came into existence given there were no other subspecies before this paper. These are as follows:

i) Isopogon spathulatus subsp. elongatus is newly described. This was previously referred to as the phrase name Isopogon sp. Fitzgerald River (D.B. Foreman 813)

ii) Isopogon spathulatus subsp. obovatus. This was previously known as Isopogon buxifolius var. obovatus

The nominotypical subspecies, Isopogon spathulatus subsp. spathulatus, contains under it the synonyms Isopogon buxifolius var. spathulatus, Isopogon buxifolius var. linearis and the phrase name species Isopogon sp. Canning Reservoir (M.D. Tindale 121 & B.R. Maslin).

So notably here, we have three phrase name species that have now been formally described, and the circumscription of Isopogon buxifolius sensu strictu has been narrowed, and it's now recognised as quite a short range species.

The paper contains a fantastic key to species and subspecies of Western Australian Isopogon with entire, essentially flat leaves (both surfaces clearly visible). The key is as follows:

and here are some nice distribution maps from the paper:

I have already implemented all of these taxonomic changes in iNat, and all of the new species are now available. I'm going to go through observations relevant to the newly described stuff and add IDs where I can

fyi @margl @hillsflora @bushmonger @kelnat @boobook99 @nicklambert @gregtasney @possumpete @kezzza4
feel free to share and tag others

Publicado el febrero 25, 2024 10:01 MAÑANA por thebeachcomber thebeachcomber | 6 comentarios | Deja un comentario

Identification of Actinodium

Actinodium is quite a unique genus of flowering plant. Endemic to southwestern Western Australia, the flower heads look just like a daisy, but the genus is actually in Myrtaceae. There is one described species, Actinodium cunninghamii, the 'Albany Daisy'. Most observations get identified as this species.

However, there is actually a second entity in this genus, the currently undescribed phrase name species Actinodium sp. Fitzgerald River (H.A. Froebe & R. Classen 810). The two are very similar morphologically, and they also have strongly overlapping ranges. Here is how the two are separated in KeyBase:

Leaves 2.5–5 mm long; inflorescence heads 8–25 mm in diameter; linear bracts of outer sterile flowers 3-5 mm long = cunninghamii

Leaves usually 3.5–5.5 mm long; inflorescence heads 20–45 mm in diameter; linear bracts of outer sterile flowers 5–11 mm long = sp. Fitzgerald River

So broadly, sp. Fitzgerald River is a bigger plant. The leaf length character is the least useful given the ranges for the two strongly overlap, but the other two characters are almost mutually exclusive: sp. Fitzgerald River has flower heads with a much broader diameter, and the bracts of the outer sterile flowers are much longer.

(just noting that there may be other differences between the two, eg something like colour, but I am not aware of these differences, the only information I could find separating the two online is this key, so that's what I'm operating off)

Unfortunately most iNat observations of Actinodium don't have something for scale in shot, so it's difficult to confidently assign an ID in some cases. Having said that, there are definitely some observations where you can tell that the flower heads are quite small or quite large, and observations with hands in them help too. I'm going to review the 100+ records on iNat and, where an observation cannot be reliably assigned to either species, downgrade it to genus. For observations that are clearly sp. Fitzgerald River, the best ID for now is also genus, but I'll also add an observation field to keep track of them.

UPDATE: having gone through a few now, there are definitely observations that seem, to me at least, fairly easy to assign to either of the entities even without a sense of scale.

For example, here's one that is a very obvious cunninghamii based on very small flower heads: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/59563521

And then compare that to something like this where the flower heads seem to clearly be very large, a stark difference: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/35162058

Not all are so clear cut, and of course I picked these specific examples as 'extremes'/very obvious cases of each entity and not all of them look like this, but there are certainly ones which I'm confident about assigning.

Publicado el febrero 25, 2024 03:39 MAÑANA por thebeachcomber thebeachcomber | 9 comentarios | Deja un comentario

18 de diciembre de 2023

Deobscuring Australian species (IUCN statuses)

As many of you would know, there are many Australian species on iNat that have their locations automatically obscured; at time of writing, the total number of species is ~2,800.

As a brief aside, the 'true' number is actually a bit lower than that, possibly several hundred lower. This seems oddly vague/inaccurate, but it's due to a mechanism on iNat to prevent bad actors unobscuring individual observations. Consider the following situation:
Someone uploads an observation of something with a sensitive location, it gets rightfully obscured. Three bad actors come along and each intentionally misidentify the observation as a common, unobscured species, eg a feral pigeon. The overall ID now shifts to said common species, and so the location gets unobscured, and they can access the sensitive location.
To combat this behaviour, iNat is setup so that if an ID of a sensitive species is added to an observation at any time, even if it is wrong + overruled or later withdrawn, the observation will remain obscured as a safeguard. So at least some of the species being included in that 2,800 is not because the actual species itself is obscured for Australia, but rather because there is at least one individual observation with at least one wrong ID (but now corrected) of an obscured species from somewhere else in the world. A classic example is the sulphur-crested cockatoo. Currently, 41 observations of this species are being automatically obscured in Australia. This is not because this species has any obscuration applied whatsoever, but because, on each of these observations, someone mistakenly added an ID of yellow-crested cockatoo (a threatened species from Southeast Asia obscured on iNat). All of these observations have since been correctly identified, but that initial wrong ID still applies obscuration.

But even accounting for that, take home message is that a lot of species are currently being obscured in iNat within Australia. Whilst many of these are being obscured based on state or federal sensitive species lists, there are also many that are being obscured only because of IUCN-based statuses. In many cases, these statuses do not correspond at all to Australian state or federal statuses as our conservation bodies/instruments and the IUCN apply different methodologies. On top of that, a lot of species being obscured due to IUCN statuses shouldn't actually have hidden locations, eg there are some Western Australian plant species that have an IUCN status of Near Threatened or Vulnerable despite being quite common and widespread, and having no federal or state status.

There has to be a reason for obscuring locations. If a species is threatened by collection, poaching, etc., then absolutely obscuration is a useful tool and will be implemented. But for other species, the threats are completely unrelated to these factors. For some species, the threats are clearing of habitat due to urban development, stochastic events such as fires due to small population size, increasing temperatures or sea levels due to climate change, etc. So obscuring the locations would not actually ameliorate any of these threats, as they are entirely unrelated to whether locations are public or not. Indeed in cases like these, it would almost certainly actually be detrimental to the species to obscure its locations on iNat. Consider a situation where eg a block of bush is being cleared for a housing development. Someone finds a species there and uploads an observation to iNat, but the location gets obscured, and by the time someone gets around to getting access to the true location, the vegetation has been cleared because no-one knew it was there due to the obscuration.

So obscuration should always be justified. As the main part of my job at the ALA, I'm working with iNat data on both the iNat and ALA ends. Under the National Framework for Restricted Access Species Data, we're trying to act consistently with the framework and make iNaturalist consistent with the state and territory sensitivity lists. So over the next few weeks, I will be opening the locations for all species on iNat where Australian observations are being automatically obscured due to an IUCN status only. Some of you may have noticed I have already done this for a small handful of species, mostly Tasmania stuff (see https://www.inaturalist.org/journal/thebeachcomber/86826-deobscuring-tasmanian-species).

As a few extra points of clarification:

1 . Perhaps the most important point here is to clarify how obscuration works on iNat just for the benefit of those who aren't completely familiar with the process.

a) When an observation is obscured on iNat, the true coordinates entered by the observer are randomly scrambled into a ~500 sq. km box around them. Any other user viewing that record will see the randomly generated coordinates with a box around them; they know the true coordinates are somewhere inside that box, but not the actual location. In addition to the coordinates, the date and time are also removed from the observation, so that only the month and year are displayed. Further, any identifications added to the record will have their timestamp altered to also only show the month and year.
b) When these records get exported to the ALA each week, the obscuration accompanies them, so the records are also obscured in the ALA, ie the coordinates shown in the ALA are the randomly generated ones, and the coordinate uncertainty is listed as somewhere around 29,000-30,000 m.
c) There are many different channels for getting access to the true coordinates if you're a researcher, land manager etc. I won't list them all here, but they include having users 'trust' you on iNat (can be turned on in profile settings) or directly requesting the data from the ALA (the true coordinates do go into the ALA, it's just that they are not made publicly available). So locations of obscured records are by no means lost, just more difficult to access. Also, when updates to coordinates/obscuration are made on iNat, these changes are automatically reflected in the ALA after a week or so.
d) There are two different types of obscuration on iNat.
i . Geoprivacy refers to users manually obscuring their own records. This is done at an individual observation level.
ii . Taxon geoprivacy refers to the automatic obscuration of records by the system. This is done at a taxon level.

2 . Crucial point: any records that you have manually obscured have not been deobscured. This only applies to species that were getting automatically obscured by the system, and only those being affected by an IUCN status.

Publicado el diciembre 18, 2023 10:27 MAÑANA por thebeachcomber thebeachcomber | 25 comentarios | Deja un comentario

14 de diciembre de 2023

Hedera in Australia

Hedera is a relatively small genus (there is disagreement between sources as to how many species, with some taxa being relegated to subspecies in some sources, but for what it's worth POWO currently lists 19 species and a hybrid) of climbing plants native to northern Africa, Europe, and then stretching in a band across Asia as far east as Japan.

For those outside the native range of Hedera (but also for many within), the most well-known species is Hedera helix, the 'English ivy' or 'common ivy'. It is widely cultivated across the world, and is commonly planted to cover walls, fences, and other vertical surfaces. Unfortunately, it is now also widely naturalised as an invasive species around the world, readily escaping cultivation into nearby areas.

Like elsewhere, this situation seems to very much be the case in Australia. As I write this, there are ~900 iNat records of Hedera in Australia identified as H. helix (without having looked at them all yet, I strongly suspect a large % of these represent specimens that are planted rather than naturalised populations and need to be marked as cultivated, but let's assume for now they're all wild), and the AVH currently holds 157 collections identified as H. helix from Australia. In almost any suburb in Sydney, it is fairly easy to find at least a few properties or public spaces with H. helix planted over walls or fences, and indeed Hyde Park in the city has large sections where planted H. helix entirely blankets the ground. I am also increasingly seeing this species escaping cultivation in Sydney and invading nearby bushland.

However, all is not as it seems. Enter, Helix hibernica ('Atlantic ivy', 'Boston ivy').

There is a recent preprint, currently under review, entitled Extensive misidentification of European ivy species (Hedera L.): How taxonomically reliable are online biodiversity databases?, which can be read here: https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-3693710/v1. It has a lot of useful information for us here. Here are the most important elements from that manuscript (with numbered references removed for readability):

"This is the case for ivies (Hedera L.), a small genus of recent diversification affected by extensive hybridization, where species delimitation has long been controversial. Besides, ivy species identification relies on inconspicuous microscopic characters (trichomes) of difficult interpretation while macroscopic characters (leaves, flowers or fruits) tend to have low taxonomic importance. In fact, the first feature in an ivy species diagnosis is the identification of the type of trichomes, while leaves are regarded as secondary diagnostic characters or even useless (Fig. 2). Even in cases where leaves are used for species diagnosis, it is the combination of leaf and trichome characteristics that allows species identification."

"The most important diagnostic character in Hedera is the type of trichomes (scale-like, stellate-rotate and stellate-multiangulate; Fig. 2A), whose assessment constitutes the first step on the species identification for the European ivy species...Indeed, the single area in the world where the three types of trichomes converge is the Iberian Peninsula in Europe, with H. helix as the representative of the multiangulate type, H. hibernica as the representative of the rotate type and H. iberica representing the scale-like type. Although the trichomes are quite distinct among the three species, towards the regions where they contact across their ranges it is frequent to observe individuals with intermediate features. Indeed, across H. hibernica distribution (from UK to Spain) whenever it contacts with H. helix, there are
populations whose individuals display intermediate forms of trichomes between the typical multiangulate of H. helix and the typical rotate of H. hibernica."

"In the case of the intermediate trichomes between H. helix and H. hibernica, leaves (or any other macromorphological trait so far analyzed) do not help species identification, as the two species show high variation and overlap (Fig. 2B)."

This third point is the crucial one here: you need to inspect the trichomes to reliably differentiate H. helix and H. hibernica. Why is this important? Because H. hibernica is also present in Australia. And indeed, it seems that a very large proportion of records, both photographic and vouchered, identified as H. helix are actually H. hibernica.

Let's skip across the Pacific to the US for a second, with a 2006 paper entitled Prevalence of different horticultural taxa of ivy (Hedera spp., Araliaceae) in invading populations (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10530-004-2424-6). They note that:

" Several similar forms are sold under the general common name of English ivy. They are groundcovers that have been used extensively in urban landscapes in the Pacific Northwest because of many desirable characteristics, including appearance, shade-tolerance, and easy propagation and growth. They have also been used for erosion control and slope stabilization, although their effectiveness in that role appears overrated (Parker 1996). As a result of their extensive use and biological characteristics, ‘English’ ivy has become one of the most ubiquitous invaders of urban and suburban forests in the Pacific Northwest (Reichard 2000)"

"As a result of both genetic analysis and morphological identification, 85% of the 119 samples were attributed to Hedera hibernica and 15% to H. helix. This indicates that H. hibernica is the taxon most responsible for the invasion by English ivy in the Pacific Northwest. Only 15% of the samples from the invading population were found to be Hedera helix"

Jumping back to Australia, it seems like we have a similar situation. VicFlora currently lists both H. helix and H. hibernica as naturalised in Victoria, and provides this explanation:

"Hedera hibernica is the more prevalent of the two species of Hedera naturalised in Victoria, but the name H. helix has been widely misapplied to this species."

"Hedera helix is the less common of the two species of Hedera naturalised in Victoria, known only from Ballarat, and Hallston Forest near Leongatha, but possibly more common that collections suggest. In South Australia H. helix is also rare, with H. hibernica being the prevalent species (Chris Brodie pers.comm. July 2020)."

Here is the VicFlora couplet for the two species:

Hairs on young leaves and stems in vegetative shoots stellate, usually stalked, hairs white or off-white, rays 4–8(–10), of different lengths and projecting at a range of angles from the leaf surface, giving an irregular appearance; leaves in vegetative shoots very rarely more than 8 cm wide, often lobed > 1/2 way to base with lobes usually longer than wide = H. helix

Hairs on young leaves and young stems in vegetative shoots stellate, generally sessile, the central part of the stellate hair occupying 1/6–1/3 of the diameter, hairs often pale yellowish brown, sometimes white or off-white, or orange or tan in the centre with rays mostly white or off-white, or indumentum a mixture of these colours, rays 4–12(–15) radiating in a plane parallel to the leaf blade, rays often of similar length; leaves in vegetative shoots occasionally > 8 cm wide, usually lobed < 1/2 way to base with lobes often as wide as long = H. hibernica

[reiterating per my comments above that the leaf characters noted at that couplet shouldn't be relied on, it's the hair characters that are diagnostic]

In addition to Victoria, the South Australia, Queensland and Western Australia herbaria also recognise that H. hibernica is naturalised in Australia in addition to H. helix. Indeed, NSW is the only one that still only recognises H. helix as being present.

What do the specimens in AVH say? As an aside, it's a bit annoying at the moment. Despite H. hibernica being unambiguously present in Australia, with four state herbaria recognising its presence as noted above, this species currently does not have the APC 'red tick' (I don't know if this is an oversight or a deliberate decision), so the AVH/ALA do not have a profile for the species. Because of this, all specimens IDed as H. hibernica in the AVH are being dumped into the genus. Anyway, there are currently 59 specimens with an ID of H. hibernica in the AVH. These are from:

Victoria (30 specimens)
South Australia (17)
NSW (3)
Queensland (4, including one that is not naturalised)
ACT (2)
WA (2)
Tasmania (1)

We have confirmed specimens from NSW, so why does NSW not recognise the species? Because the specimens are lodged at the Brisbane Herbarium, and a profile is only created for a species in PlantNET if the NSW Herbarium holds a specimen (I personally disagree with this policy, but that's an argument for another day).

So overall, it is clear that H. helix is not the only species present in Australia, with H. hibernica also present (there is actually a third species too, H. algeriensis. This one is a little bit confusing: APC lists it as naturalised in South Australia, and the South Australia eFlora agrees, yet the AVH has zero specimens from South Australia. Instead, it has 7 specimens from Victoria, yet VicFlora doesn't list it... So let's put this one aside for now). And at the very least in Victoria and South Australia, H. hibernica is the more commonly naturalised species. Yet on iNat, there are almost 900 Australian observations IDed as H. helix, and just 26 as H. hibernica!

This seems to me a very clear-cut case of a pervasive set of misidentifications driven by a combination of factors, including CV suggestions and the fact that a lot of people probably don't know H. hibernica even exists as a species, let alone knowledge of how similar it is to H. helix and the characters that are required to differentiate the two. From even just a brief skim of Australian observations, it is immediately clear that the vast majority, probably close to 100%, do not contain images that allow a legitimate ID to be made of either H. helix or H. hibernica, and that almost all of these records should be kept at genus. My plan is to therefore go through all Australian Hedera observations and, unless images of trichomes are present (eg this observation by @nomennudum: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/141113195), I will be pushing them all back to genus, as I don't think it is useful to have so many observations IDed as H. helix when a) you cannot actually make that ID from the characters present, and b) a large proportion of these records are almost certainly actually H. hibernica. If noone has any objections to this, I'll do this in the next day or two.

Publicado el diciembre 14, 2023 10:04 MAÑANA por thebeachcomber thebeachcomber | 15 comentarios | Deja un comentario

17 de noviembre de 2023

Deobscuring Tasmanian species

As the main part of my job at the ALA, I'm working with iNat data on both the iNat and ALA ends. Under the National Framework for Restricted Access Species Data, we're trying to act consistently with the framework and make iNaturalist consistent with the state and territory sensitivity lists. Recently, Tasmania's Department of Natural Resources and Environment requested that most Tasmanian species currently being auto-obscured on iNat have their locations opened up. Some of you may have noticed, but I completed this task last week. Some explanations for the situation:

1 . Perhaps the most important point here is to clarify how obscuration works on iNat just for the benefit of those who aren't completely familiar with the process.

a) When an observation is obscured on iNat, the true coordinates entered by the observer are randomly scrambled into a ~500 sq. km box around them. Any other user viewing that record will see the randomly generated coordinates with a box around them; they know the true coordinates are somewhere inside that box, but not the actual location. In addition to the coordinates, the date and time are also removed from the observation, so that only the month and year are displayed. Further, any identifications added to the record will have their timestamp altered to also only show the month and year.
b) When these records get exported to the ALA each week, the obscuration accompanies them, so the records are also obscured in the ALA, ie the coordinates shown in the ALA are the randomly generated ones, and the coordinate uncertainty is listed as somewhere around 29,000-30,000 m.
c) There are many different channels for getting access to the true coordinates if you're a researcher, land manager etc. I won't list them all here, but they include having users 'trust' you on iNat (can be turned on in profile settings) or directly requesting the data from the ALA (the true coordinates do go into the ALA, it's just that they are not made publicly available). So locations of obscured records are by no means lost, just more difficult to access. Also, when updates to coordinates/obscuration are made on iNat, these changes are automatically reflected in the ALA after a week or so.
d) There are two different types of obscuration on iNat.
i . Geoprivacy refers to users manually obscuring their own records. This is done at an individual observation level.
ii . Taxon geoprivacy refers to the automatic obscuration of records by the system. This is done at a taxon level.

2 . Crucial point: any records that you have manually obscured have not been deobscured. This only applies to species that were getting automatically obscured by the system.

3 . The majority of Tasmanian species that were being auto-obscured on iNat before last week fell into one (or both) of two categories:
a) They were being obscured due to IUCN conservation statuses of near threatened, vulnerable, etc. Many of these statuses (for Tasmanian species, and for species in other Australian states) do not correlate with Australian statuses. In particular, there are many species that have been assigned IUCN statuses based on their specific criteria, but do not have any federal or state status in Australia. A lot of these species have been obscured on iNat for a number of years.
b) They were being obscured due to a Tasmania-specific status added earlier this year. The application of the status was correct nominally, but obscuration was accidentally applied when they should have remained open.

4 . So last week, I went through and deobscured close to 600 Tasmanian species that were being auto-obscured, but which Tasmania's Department of Natural Resources and Environment requested to be open. These decisions would have been based on the nature of the threats involved; if a species is threatened by eg increased fire regimes due to climate change, obscuration serves no purpose, and in fact is likely to be detrimental by adding extra steps for researchers to access location data.

5 . The following species have remained obscured on explicit request of the department:
a) Lomatia tasmanica

b) Prasophyllum taphanyx

c) Caladenia vulgaris var. nunguensis

d) Thymichthys politus

In addition to these, there are another 20-25 or so species occurring in Tasmania that are currently being auto-obscured across all observations, however, these are due to IUCN statuses, and I will be removing these soon.

tagging the top Tasmanian observers and identifiers:
@mftasp @wildroo @mattintas @simongrove @elainemcdonald @ben_travaglini @jggbrown @lukemcooo @george_seagull @reiner @jason_graham @annabelc @sofiazed1 @corunastylis @benkurek__ @nicfit @gumnut @tony_d @ttsquid @kallies @kevinbonham @tas56 @elusiveorchids @cowirrie @tasmanian_cryptofauna @george_vaughan @peggydnew

as always, please feel free to tag others that may be interested

Publicado el noviembre 17, 2023 03:20 MAÑANA por thebeachcomber thebeachcomber | 3 comentarios | Deja un comentario

07 de noviembre de 2023

2023 bird taxonomy changes - an Australian perspective

Anecdotally, I think there is a public perception that bird taxonomy is quite stable, and that names and taxon concepts rarely change, at least relative to other groups such as plants. However, bird taxonomy is still very much a dynamic field, especially with the advent of molecular studies/technologies, and each year will often usher in 100+ changes, including splits, lumps and newly described species.

This year saw 3 newly described species, 124 new species gained through splits to existing species (mostly the elevation of subspecies to full species), and 16 species lost through being lumped into others, for a net total gain of 111 new bird species. For a comprehensive overview of all of these changes, there is a fantastic summary here: https://science.ebird.org/en/use-ebird-data/the-ebird-taxonomy/2023-ebird-taxonomy-update

I will note that a number of these changes, especially those considering some albatrosses and other seabirds, have already been recognised by Australian sources, some of them for a number of years. For example, the 2012 edition of Pizzey and Knight's The Field Guide to the Birds of Australia already treated the Southern Royal Albatross and Northern Royal Albatross as full species, as too the subspecies of Wandering Albatross and the subspecies of Yellow-nosed Albatross.

All of these changes have either already been implemented in iNat in the last two weeks, or will be implemented in the coming weeks. To help keep track of them all, I summarise all of the changes relevant for Australian birders below (note that I haven't addressed changes to very rare vagrants to locations such as Christmas Island).

SPLITS

1 . Lesser Sand-Plover (Charadrius mongolus) has been split into Tibetan Sand-Plover (Anarhynchus atrifrons) and Siberian Sand-Plover (Anarhynchus mongolus). Note that the genus name has also changed. The Siberian Sand-Plover is the species present in Australia.

All iNat records for Australia were automatically swapped to Siberian Sand-Plover, so no further action is required.

Here is the taxon swap: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/133048

Here are all Australian observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=6744,7333,7616,10287,10293,118147&taxon_id=1505781

2 . Australian Tern (Gelochelidon macrotarsa) has been split from Gull-billed Tern (Gelochelidon nilotica), after previously being considered a subspecies (Gelochelidon nilotica ssp. macrotarsa). Both species are present in Australia.

This split does require some reassessments of previous IDs, depending on where your records are from. All records that were previously identified as Gelochelidon nilotica ssp. macrotarsa were automatically swapped to Gelochelidon macrotarsa, regardless of location. However, records identified only as Gelochelidon nilotica were treated differently depending on location:

a) Gelochelidon nilotica records from Western Australia, the northern half of the NT, and northern QLD stretching down to around Townsville were bumped back to genus. These records could be either Gelochelidon nilotica or Gelochelidon macrotarsa, so they need to each be manually reassessed.
b) Gelochelidon nilotica records from everywhere else in Australia were automatically swapped to Gelochelidon macrotarsa. Although the vast majority of these will now be correctly identified, with eBird noting that Gelochelidon nilotica is a "rare to very rare visitor to Australia", it is worth it to double check them, especially along the Queensland and northern NSW coast, in case they are actually Gelochelidon nilotica.

Here are the taxon swaps:
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/132982
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/132983

Here are all Australian observations currently identified as Gelochelidon macrotarsa: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=6744,7333,7616,10287,10293,118147&taxon_id=1505721
Here are all Australian observations currently identified as Gelochelidon macrotarsa: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=6744,7333,7616,10287,10293,118147&taxon_id=144536
Here are all Australian observations currently identified only to the genus Gelochelidon: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?lrank=genus&place_id=6744,7333,7616,10287,10293,118147&taxon_id=144325

Of particular note to me here are the (as of writing) 21 observations currently identified as Gelochelidon nilotica ssp. affinis from Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and surrounds, and Adelaide. My knowledge of seabirds is poor, so I will not add IDs to them, but I suspect most of these should actually be changed to Gelochelidon macrotarsa, as they seem unlikely to be Gelochelidon nilotica at face value (based purely on location). [having said that, there do seem to be at least a few genuine ones, so they shouldn’t just be blindly reIDed]

3 . Royal Albatross (Diomedea epomophora) will be split into Northern Royal Albatross (Diomedea sanfordi) and Southern Royal Albatross (Diomedea epomophora). Diomedea sanfordi was previously treated as a subspecies of Diomedea epomophora, Diomedea epomophora ssp. sanfordi. As of writing, this split is yet to be committed on iNat.

Australian records currently identified as Diomedea epomophora ssp. epomorpha will be swapped to Diomedea epomophora.
Australian records currently identified as Diomedea epomophora ssp. sanfordi will be swapped to Diomedea sanfordi.
I am unsure what will happen to records currently only identified to species, and whether they will be rolled back to genus or not. Whether or not they are, I would recommend reassessing any records not currently identified to subspecies as the two are very similar.

Here are all Australian observations currently identified as Diomedea epomophora ssp. epomorpha: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=6744,7333,7616,10287,10293,118147&taxon_id=508986
Here are all Australian observations currently identified as Diomedea epomophora ssp. sanfordi: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=6744,7333,7616,10287,10293,118147&taxon_id=508988
Here are all Australian observations currently identified only as Diomedea epomophora: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?lrank=species&place_id=6744,7333,7616,10287,10293,118147&taxon_id=508987

4 . Wandering Albatross (Diomedea exulans) will be split into four species: Amsterdam Albatross (Diomedea amsterdamensis), Antipodean Albatross (Diomedea antipodensis), Tristan Albatross (Diomedea dabbenena), and Snowy Albatross (Diomedea exulans), with these being currently equivalent to subspecies. As of writing, this split is yet to be committed on iNat.

To my understanding this seems like quite a complex situation as these taxa overlap extensively, so I have no idea how the split will be executed on iNat for observations that are not currently identified to one of the subspecies. For observations that are identified to subspecies:

Diomedea exulans ssp. exulans will become Diomedea exulans. Here are all Australian observations currently identified as this subspecies: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=6744,7333,7616,10287,10293,118147&taxon_id=508989
Diomedea exulans ssp. dabbenena will become Diomedea dabbenena. There are currently no Australian observations identified as this subspecies, but it is known to be an occasional visitor.
Diomedea exulans ssp. antipodensis will become Diomedea antipodensis ssp. antipodensis. Here are all Australian observations currently identified as this subspecies: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=6744,7333,7616,10287,10293,118147&taxon_id=508989
Diomedea exulans ssp. gibsoni will become Diomedea antipodensis ssp. gibsoni. Here are all Australian observations currently identified as this subspecies: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=6744,7333,7616,10287,10293,118147&taxon_id=508992
Diomedea exulans ssp. amsterdamensis will become Diomedea amsterdamensis. There are currently no Australian observations identified as this subspecies, but it is known to be a rare visitor off the WA coast.
Here are all Australian observations currently identified only as Diomedea exulans: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?lrank=species&place_id=6744,7333,7616,10287,10293,118147&taxon_id=508990. These will need to be reassessed to determine which new species they fall into.

5 . Yellow-nosed Albatross (Thalassarche chlororhynchos) will be split into Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross (Thalassarche carteri) and Atlantic Yellow-nosed Albatross (Thalassarche chlororhynchos). Thalassarche carteri was previously treated as a subspecies of Thalassarche chlororhynchos, Thalassarche chlororhynchos ssp. carteri As of writing, this split is yet to be committed on iNat.

Australian records currently identified as Thalassarche chlororhynchos ssp. chlororhynchos will be swapped to Thalassarche chlororhynchos.
Australian records currently identified as Thalassarche chlororhynchos ssp. carteri will be swapped to Thalassarche carteri.
I am unsure what will happen to records currently only identified to species, and whether they will be rolled back to genus or not. Whether or not they are, I would recommend reassessing any records not currently identified to subspecies as the two are very similar.

Here are all Australian observations currently identified as Thalassarche chlororhynchos ssp. chlororhynchos: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=6744,7333,7616,10287,10293,118147&taxon_id=501159
Here are all Australian observations currently identified as Thalassarche chlororhynchos ssp. carteri: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=6744,7333,7616,10287,10293,118147&taxon_id=501158
Here are all Australian observations currently identified only as Thalassarche chlororhynchos: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?lrank=species&place_id=6744,7333,7616,10287,10293,118147&taxon_id=4091

6 . Cattle Egret (Bubulcus ibis) will be split into Eastern Cattle Egret (Bubulcus coromandus) and Western Cattle Egret (Bubulcus ibis), with these being currently equivalent to subspecies. The Eastern Cattle Egret is the species present in Australia. As of writing, this split is yet to be committed on iNat, but it will be a straightforward one for Australia.

All iNat records for Australia, including those only identified as Cattle Egret and those identified to the subspecies Bubulcus ibis ssp. coromandus, will be automatically swapped to Eastern Cattle Egret, so no further action is required.

Here are all Australian observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=6744,7333,7616,10287,10293,118147&taxon_id=5017

7 . Intermediate Egret (Ardea intermedia) was split into Plumed Egret (Ardea plumifera), Yellow-billed Egret (Ardea brachyrhyncha), and Medium Egret (Ardea intermedia), with these previously being currently equivalent to subspecies.

Whilst all Australian observations were automatically swapped to Plumed Egret, including those only identified as Plumed Egret and those identified to the subspecies Ardea intermedia ssp. plumifera, and Plumed Egret is the expected species at any location in Australia (see exceptions below), Ardea intermedia sensu strictu has been documented from Australia (see this paper: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/364226893_Taxonomic_revision_occurrence_and_identification_of_Intermediate_Egret_Ardea_intermedia_in_North_Queensland_Australia), so it's worth keeping an eye out!

Here are the taxon swaps:
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/133047
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/133045

Here are all Australian observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=6744,7333,7616,10287,10293,118147&taxon_id=1505779

There are two exceptions here, with two observations of Medium Egret currently in Australian territories, one at Cocos (Keeling) Islands and one at Christmas Island: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=6744,7333,7616,10287,10293,118147&taxon_id=558445

8 . Eclectus Parrot (Eclectus roratus) was split into four species: Moluccan Eclectus (Eclectus roratus), Sumba Eclectus (Eclectus cornelia), Tanimbar Eclectus (Eclectus riedeli), and Papuan Eclectus (Eclectus polychloros). The Papuan Eclectus is the species present in Australia.

All iNat records for Australia were automatically swapped to Papuan Eclectus, so no further action is required.

Here is the taxon swap: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/133353

Here are all Australian observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=6744,7333,7616,10287,10293,118147&taxon_id=19224

9 . Macquarie Parakeet (Cyanoramphus erythrotis) will be split from Red-crowned Parakeet (Cyanoramphus novaezelandiae), after previously being considered a subspecies (Cyanoramphus novaezelandiae ssp. erythrotis). As of writing, this split is yet to be committed on iNat. However, this split is of no consequence in iNat as the Macquarie Parakeet went extinct in the late 1800s (and indeed eBird notes that it may be re-lumped into Cyanoramphus novaezelandiae in 2024).

10 . North Papuan Pitta (Erythropitta habenichti) and South Papuan Pitta (Erythropitta macklotii) will be split from Papuan Pitta (Erythropitta macklotii), after Erythropitta habenichti previously being considered a subspecies (Erythropitta macklotii ssp. habenichti). As of writing, this split is yet to be committed on iNat.

South Papuan Pitta is the species present in Australia, but note that, other than the common name, there is no actual change here for Australia, as Erythropitta habenichti is New Guinea only.

11 . Supertramp Fantail (Rhipidura semicollaris) will be split from Arafura Fantail (Rhipidura dryas), after Rhipidura semicollaris previously being considered a subspecies (Rhipidura dryas ssp. semicollaris). As of writing, this split is yet to be committed on iNat.

Arafura Fantail is the species present in Australia, but this change has no impact on Australian observations as Supertramp Fantail is not in Australia.

12 . Rufous Fantail (Rhipidura rufifrons) will be split into six species: Gilolo Fantail (Rhipidura torrida), Louisiade Fantail (Rhipidura louisiadensis), Australian Rufous Fantail (Rhipidura rufifrons), Santa Cruz Fantail (Rhipidura melaenolaema), Micronesian Rufous Fantail (Rhipidura versicolor), and Solomons Rufous Fantail (Rhipidura rufofronta), with these being currently equivalent to subspecies. As of writing, this split is yet to be committed on iNat.

Australian Rufous Fantail is the species present in Australia, but note that, other than the common name, there is no actual change here for Australia, as the other species are not found in Australia.

13 . Pink-breasted Flowerpecker (Dicaeum keiense) will be split from Mistletoebird (Dicaeum hirundinaceum), after Dicaeum keiense previously being considered a subspecies (Dicaeum hirundinaceum spp. keiense). As of writing, this split is yet to be committed on iNat.

Mistletoebird is the species present in Australia, but this change has no impact on Australian observations as Pink-breasted Flowerpecker is not in Australia.

14 . Olive-backed Sunbird (Cinnyris jugularis) was split into eight (!!) species, as follows: Ornate Sunbird (Cinnyris ornatus), Tukangbesi Sunbird (Cinnyris infrenatus), Sahul Sunbird (Cinnyris frenatus), Palawan Sunbird (Cinnyris aurora), South Moluccan Sunbird (Cinnyris clementiae), Flores Sea Sunbird (Cinnyris teysmanni), Mamberamo Sunbird (Cinnyris idenburgi), and Garden Sunbird (Cinnyris jugularis). The Sahul Sunbird is the species present in Australia.

All iNat records for Australia were automatically swapped to Sahul Sunbird, so no further action is required.

Here is the taxon swap: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/132792

Here are all Australian observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=6744,7333,7616,10287,10293,118147&taxon_id=144404

LUMPS
No lumps affected Australian species

NEW SPECIES
No newly described Australian species

SUBSPECIES RESHUFFLES
None affecting Australian species

OTHER ASSORTED SHUFFLES
None affecting Australian species

SCIENTIFIC NAME CHANGES
It is important to check observations of these as, where genus names have changed, there may now be unintended disagreements between IDs. For example, the White-Bellied Sea-eagle has changed from Haliaeetus leucogaster –> Icthyophaga leucogaster. If an observation's IDs looked like this:

IDer 1: Haliaeetus

IDer 2: Haliaeetus leucogaster
IDer3: Haliaeetus leucogaster
Overall ID = Haliaeetus leucogaster

That observation will now look like this after the change:

IDer 1: Haliaeetus

IDer 2: Icthyophaga leucogaster
IDer3: Icthyophaga leucogaster
Overall ID = Accipitridae

1 . Norfolk Ground Dove: Alopecoenas norfolkensis –> Pampusana norfolkensis
2 . Hooded Plover: Thinornis cucullatus –> Charadrius cucullatus
3 . Black-fronted Dotterel: Elseyornis melanops –> Charadrius melanops
4 . Oriental Plover: Charadrius veredus –> Anarhynchus veredus
5 . Siberian Sand-Plover: Charadrius mongolus ssp. mongolus/stegmanni –> Anarhynchus mongolus
6 . Greater Sand-Plover: Charadrius leschenaultii –> Anarhynchus leschenaultii
7 . Double-banded Plover: Charadrius bicinctus –> Anarhynchus bicinctus
8 . Red-capped Plover: Charadrius ruficapillus –> Anarhynchus ruficapillus
9 . Kentish Plover: Charadrius alexandrinus –> Anarhynchus alexandrinus
10 . White-bellied Sea-Eagle: Haliaeetus leucogaster –> Icthyophaga leucogaster
11 . Pink Cockatoo: Lophochroa leadbeateri –> Cacatua leadbeateri
12 . Mulga Parrot: Psephotus varius –> Psephotellus varius
13 . Hooded Parrot: Psephotus dissimilis –> Psephotellus dissimilis
14 . Golden-shouldered Parrot: Psephotus chrysopterygius –> Psephotellus chrysopterygius
15 . Paradise Parrot [extinct]: Psephotus pulcherrimus –> Psephotellus pulcherrimus
16 . Golden Bowerbird: Amblyornis newtoniana –> Prionodura newtoniana
17 . Black Butcherbird: Cracticus quoyi –> Melloria quoyi
18 . Mangrove Robin: Eopsaltria pulverulenta –> Melanodryas pulverulenta
19 . Pale-yellow Robin: Tregellasia capito –> Eopsaltria capito
20 . White-faced Robin: Tregellasia leucops –> Eopsaltria leucops

Publicado el noviembre 7, 2023 07:58 MAÑANA por thebeachcomber thebeachcomber | 22 comentarios | Deja un comentario

30 de octubre de 2023

Check old Ericaceae observations

Unfortunately an Australian user with thousands (tens of thousands from memory) of identifications, mostly of Ericaceae (especially on the east coast), deleted their account a few weeks ago. These IDs have all now been lost.

I won't get into a discussion here about the pros/cons of allowing all content to be deleted (there are numerous forum threads about this issue, I recommend having a read of those), but I wanted to make this post as I believe most people won't have realised this user deleted their account and thus all of their IDs (I only even realised as @jackiemiles brought it to my attention today). Unfortunately the deletion was long enough ago now (> two weeks) that staff basically cannot retrieve a backup without shutting down all of iNat, which obviously is not feasible.

So I'm tagging top IDers and observers of Ericaceae in Australia (mostly east coast) here; if you have some time over the next week or two, it would be great to go back through old records and add IDs where you can. In particular, there will be many observations of easily IDed species that were RG but have now shifted back to Needs ID (eg there are now over 100 records of Epacris longiflora that have shifted back to Needs ID where only two IDs were present, the observer and the deleted user).

Also, and perhaps most importantly, there will now be records with incorrect IDs due to the deleted IDs having been corrective.

Given I do not know why the user deleted their account, please do not name them here if you do know who I'm referring to, and don't speculate as to why they deleted their account, as I do not think this is productive.

As usual, please tag anyone else I may have missed

@alan_dandie @mftasp @george_seagull @jggbrown @reiner @elizabethhatfield @cynthia_c @bushbandit @iancastle @bean_ar @mattintas @cobaltducks @gtaseski @insiderelic @michaelcincotta @annabelc @margaretjb @gregtasney @nicklambert @possumpete @heathwallum @scottwgavins @aavankampen @lukemcooo @chrisclarke @dustaway @onetapir @rfoster @vireyajacquard @helen_y @dj_maple @adrian2370 @buffsky

Publicado el octubre 30, 2023 05:03 MAÑANA por thebeachcomber thebeachcomber | 6 comentarios | Deja un comentario

08 de octubre de 2023

Gazania in Australia

Gazania is a relatively small genus of 19 species (plus one hybrid taxon) in Asteraceae native to southern Africa. Many Australians are familiar with the genus not only because it's a popular garden plant and widely planted along median strips, in suburban parks, and in other public settings by councils, but unfortunately because it's a very widespread and often abundant weed. Naturalised in every Australian state and territory except the Northern Territory (although the AVH does contain a single collection from Alice Springs which, based on the collection notes, was clearly not planted), as well as Norfolk Island, Gazania are usually found growing as weeds in grassy wastelands, along road verges, or in back dunes and sandy areas along the coast. In some regions, including areas in southwestern Australia, they can become hugely prolific and dominate large areas.

The Australian Plant Census, and all state floras, recognise two species as naturalised in Australia: Gazania linearis and Gazania rigens.

Here is the NSW genus treatment: https://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=gn&name=Gazania
Victoria: https://vicflora.rbg.vic.gov.au/flora/taxon/2cc9dfd7-92e1-49b0-b5a7-2d96691afd3a

At time of writing, the AVH contains 385 collections of Gazania from Australia, dating all the way back to 1902. Fifteen of these are currently only determined to genus, 112 as G. rigens, and 258 as G. linearis. I have no doubt that at least a small percentage of these collections represent cultivated specimens which have not been annotated as such, but overall the collections seem to paint a clear picture of these two species being widely naturalised, especially G. linearis.

However, thanks to the knowledge of South African botanists @steven_molteno and @jeremygilmore, it seems almost certain that the name G. linearis has been misapplied in Australia, and that all collections actually represent the hybrid taxon Gazania × splendens.

Comments regarding this situation are distributed across a number of observations, but a very good summary of the most important information can be found in the conversation here: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/63065542 [UPDATE: at some point in the past few weeks, either the user who uploaded this observation deleted it, or they deleted their account entirely. I have no idea why, but this observation is now gone forever, and unfortunately the very useful comments lost with it. I have tagged Jeremy and Steven below in the comments to try retype some of them]

Long story short: Gazania linearis is almost certainly not present in Australia, not being found in the nursery trade; the best name to apply to specimens from Australia is Gazania × splendens; G. rigens is legitimately naturalised in Australia, although it can be very difficult to ID many specimens/differentiate them from Gazania × splendens, and indeed:
"The original cultivars that naturalised were already interspecies hybrids, even before they went feral. Since going invasive they've undoubtedly just continued mixing even further...They can all [including rigens] safely, correctly and easily be swept into the x splendens basket!

There's an interesting 2009 paper titled Globally grown, but poorly known: Species limits and biogeography of Gazania Gaertn. (Asteraceae) inferred from chloroplast and nuclear DNA sequence data, which can be downloaded from this link. One of their main findings was that:
"Of the 15 species sampled, only 7 are supported as monophyletic. Most of the remaining taxa form a large, poorly resolved clade corresponding to a large, morphologically variable species complex."

Gazania linearis and Gazania rigens both fall under this complex (the 'K-R complex').

Publicado el octubre 8, 2023 09:37 MAÑANA por thebeachcomber thebeachcomber | 16 comentarios | Deja un comentario

04 de agosto de 2023

Norfolk Island vascular plant curation

Decided to do some clean-up work for iNat obs of vascular plants for Norfolk Island.

First important thing to note here is that, within iNat, Norfolk does not count as part of Australia (place ID = 6744), but rather is its own separate entity (place ID = 7333). One consequence of this is that non-native species that have already been marked as introduced for Australia have to be marked again for Norfolk, so this is one task I'll be doing.

Second task is marking clearly planted/cultivated plants as such.

Third is to try ID observations to species where possible. I'm only noting ones where a 'new' species is added to the island inventory due to my ID (so IDing the 10th observation of a species with 9 observations already is irrelevant here).

Tasks

Marked as introduced

  1. Rubus grabowskii
  2. Megathyrsus maximus
  3. Rumex hypogaeus
  4. Verbena incompta
  5. Chenopodiastrum murale
  6. Cyperus brevifolius
  7. Geranium gardneri
  8. Cheilanthes viridis
  9. Gladiolus dalenii
  10. Macadamia tetraphylla
  11. Citrus × taitensis (tentative, may be cultivated)
  12. Lycium ferocissimum
  13. Pelargonium × hybridum
  14. Kalanchoe pinnata
  15. Hypoestes phyllostachya
  16. Lepidium bonariense
  17. Hydrocleys nymphoides
  18. Gamochaeta americana
  19. Musa acuminata
  20. Howea forsteriana
  21. Phlebodium aureum
  22. Alpinia zerumbet
  23. Setaria parviflora
  24. Stenotaphrum secundatum
  25. Petroselinum crispum
  26. Modiola caroliniana
  27. Juncus articulatus
  28. Gamochaeta calviceps
  29. Eriobotrya japonica
  30. Erigeron karvinskianus
  31. Gazania rigens
  32. Saccharum
  33. Verbascum virgatum
  34. Arundo donax
  35. Mentha spicata
  36. Ammophila arenaria
  37. Polycarpon tetraphyllum
  38. Orobanche minor
  39. Bromus catharticus
  40. Capsella bursa-pastoris
  41. Papaver rhoeas
  42. Hypochaeris radicata
  43. Trifolium pratense
  44. Senna septemtrionalis
  45. Prunus persica
  46. Nerium oleander
  47. Yucca aloifolia
  48. Ranunculus muricatus
  49. Paspalum mandiocanum
  50. Bidens alba
  51. Hakea salicifolia
  52. Cyperus alternifolius
  53. Dipogon lignosus
  54. Phyllanthus tenellus
  55. Furcraea foetida
  56. Verbena bonariensis
  57. Asparagus setaceus
  58. Verbena litoralis
  59. Coffea arabica
  60. Agave americana
  61. Egeria densa
  62. Vicia hirsuta
  63. Datura stramonium
  64. Melia azedarach
  65. Foeniculum vulgare
  66. Nephrolepis cordifolia
  67. Potentilla indica
  68. Azolla pinnata
  69. Sigesbeckia orientalis
  70. Abutilon grandifolium
  71. Rivina humilis
  72. Canna indica
  73. Metrosideros kermadecensis
  74. Petunia axillaris
  75. Argemone subfusiformis
  76. Salvinia molesta
  77. Frankenia pulverulenta
  78. Cyrtomium falcatum
  79. Portulaca oleracea
  80. Euphorbia prostrata
  81. Desmodium incanum
  82. Salvia coccinea
  83. Oenothera rosea
  84. Sporobolus africanus
  85. Erigeron bonariensis
  86. Lotus angustissimus
  87. Ludwigia peploides
  88. Cyperus polystachyos
  89. Facelis retusa
  90. Eleusine indica
  91. Dimorphotheca ecklonis
  92. Juncus pallidus

Taxa 'removed' due to marking as captive/cultivated'

  1. Selenicereus megalanthus
  2. Grevillea robusta
  3. Punica granatum
  4. Acacia (also updated ID to A. spirorbis)
  5. Ficus macrophylla

'New' species via IDs

  1. Updated the single Rubus observation to R. grabowskii. Doesn't actually increase the species (leaf) count, but good to get it to species
  2. Updated Alpinia sp. to Alpinia zerumbet. Ditto Rubus re species count
  3. Updated Senna sp. to Senna septemtrionalis. Ditto species count
  4. Updated Prunus sp. to Prunus persica. Ditto
  5. Updated Yucca sp. Yucca aloifolia. Ditto
  6. Updated Ranunculus sp. to Ranunculus muricatus. Ditto
  7. Updated Erigeron to Erigeron bonariensis
  8. Updated Faboideae to Lotus angustissimus
  9. Updated Onagraceae to Ludwigia peploides
  10. Updated Cyperus to Cyperus polystachyos
  11. Updated Asteraceae to Facelis retusa

'Removed' species via IDs

  1. Carex dissita --> corrected ID, actually Carex neesiana (which used to be a var. of dissita)
  2. Vicia tetrasperma --> misidentification of V. hirsuta
  3. Geranium homeanum --> corrected ID, fairly sure actually G. gardneri
  4. Lonicera japonica --> downgraded to 'Dicots', unsure what it is (but pretty sure not Lonicera)
  5. Ammophila arenaria --> Spinifex sericeus instead

Pending

  1. Eustachys sp. pending naturalised confirmation
  2. Passiflora pallida pending discussion
  3. Gloriosa superba pending naturalised confirmation
  4. Dovyalis caffra pending naturalised confirmation
  5. Agapanthus praecox pending naturalised confirmation
  6. Parochetus sp. pending naturalised confirmation
Publicado el agosto 4, 2023 08:59 MAÑANA por thebeachcomber thebeachcomber | 1 comentario | Deja un comentario

25 de julio de 2023

Guide to non-yellow flowering Oxalis in Australia

Oxalis is a large cosmopolitan genus (currently 566 accepted species in Plants of the World Online) of mostly small herbs. It's represented in Australia by 32 recorded species, most of which (24) are non-native:

Native:
Oxalis chnoodes
Oxalis exilis
Oxalis magellanica
Oxalis perennans
Oxalis radicosa
Oxalis rubens
Oxalis sp. Pilbara (M.E. Trudgen 12725)
Oxalis thompsoniae

Non-native:
Oxalis articulata
Oxalis barrelieri
Oxalis bifurca
Oxalis bowiei
Oxalis brasiliensis
Oxalis caprina
Oxalis compressa
Oxalis corniculata
Oxalis debilis
Oxalis depressa
Oxalis dillenii
Oxalis flava
Oxalis glabra
Oxalis hirta
Oxalis incarnata
Oxalis latifolia
Oxalis laxa
Oxalis micrantha
Oxalis obtusa
Oxalis perdicaria
Oxalis pes-caprae
Oxalis polyphylla
Oxalis purpurea
Oxalis violacea

(note there is also another entity, Oxalis vallicola, which is treated as separate/valid by VicFlora, but synonymised under O. latifolia everywhere else. It is separated from latifolia in the VicFlora key as: bulbils produced from old bulbs on stolons = latifolia, bulbils sessile on old bulbs = vallicola)

Many of these species, including 7 of the 8 natives, look very similar: yellow flowers and relatively small leaflets. It can often be tricky to differentiate these species, especially from photos which often lack important diagnostic characters such as hair types, stipules or fruits/seeds (which are often not present). For the most part, however, the other species, which include pink, purple, orange and white flowers, are relatively easy to identify. This photographic guide should make it easy to identify these species when they're in flower, although I also point out other useful traits too relating to leaves and below ground structures (if relevant). There are of course many other relevant characters, but I have tried to keep each entry relatively simple; more extensive descriptions for each species can be accessed in online floras. I have mostly used photos from Australian observations, except for a few species which are yet to be observed in Australia on iNaturalist, or species for which the few photos I needed were under all rights reserved copyright licenses.

Note that this guide is most useful when observing flowering specimens. For some of the species treated here, however, the leaves are highly distinct and are the most obvious diagnostic character once you have established the genus as Oxalis. Overall, as for any plant group, taking into consideration the combination of all characters for any given species will provide the most accurate identifications.

Native species
Oxalis magellanica
Distribution in Australia: Victoria (rare, Otway Range, Central Highlands between Lake Mountain and Baw Baw Plateau, and Errinundra Plateau only), Tasmania. Also New Zealand and South America.
Flowers: petals white, pale green throat (A).
Leaves: leaflets love heart-shaped with a distinct notch at the apex. Noticeable 'fold' down the centre dividing each leaflet into two lobes, Leaflets usually very small, barely exceeding 10 mm maximum length (usually smaller) (B).
General: a small species, usually up to ~10 cm max height (C). Very distinct, difficult to confuse with anything else.


A and C - @annabelc; B - @sheriff_woody_pct

Non-native species
Oxalis articulata
Distribution in Australia: broadly distributed across southeastern Australia from Brisbane to Adelaide, including Tasmania. As far inland as around Temora in NSW, plus a few rare records along the Vic/NSW border.
Flowers: petals usually broadly rectangular- or wedge-shaped (helps to differentiate from some of the other pink-flowering Oxalis, which have round petals), pale pink through to a rich pink-purple with distinct dark striations extending upwards from the throat. Almost always with a distinct dark-purple flush encircling the throat
Leaves: leaflets love heart-shaped with a distinct notch at the apex.
General: This species is very similar to Oxalis brasiliensis. Compared to O. brasiliensis, O. articulata:

  • petals seems to more consistently be more elongate rectangular (A), compared to brasiliensis which often seems to have squatter, more wedge-shaped petals (although both petal types are present in both species)
  • leaflets seem to more consistently be a little longer than wide or roughly as long as wide (B), compared to brasiliensis where the leaflets seem to more consistently be a little wider than they are long.
  • the notches at the leaflet apices are typically deeper/more prominent in O. articulata.
  • has a woody rhizome (C) instead of bulbs + bulbils.


A and C - @nomennudum; B - @silversea_starsong

Oxalis barrelieri (no Australian iNaturalist observations at time of writing)
Distribution in Australia: Christmas Island.
Flowers: petals small, white or sometimes pale pink-purple, throat rich yellow (A).
Leaves: leaflets oval-shaped, central leaflet larger than the others (B).
General: usually erect growth habit, can reach up to 1.5 m tall (C). Highly unmistakeable and unlike any other Oxalis in Australia.


A - @deniszabin ; B - @pseudoshuigeeee ; C - @takashi_nishiki

Oxalis bifurca (no Australian iNaturalist observations at time of writing)
Distribution in Australia: Victoria (although probably now extinct, only known from three 1925 records in Little River Railway Reserve between Melbourne and Geelong), NSW (records only from Campbelltown) and South Australia (also possibly extinct, four records all from the 1960s, near Adelaide and Gawler).
Flowers: petal colour variable, including stark white (A), very pale pink, hot pink or (rarely) coral, throat yellow-green.
Leaves: each leaflet divided into two distinct, (usually) narrow lobes.
General: another unmistakeable species in comparison to other Australian Oxalis given its distinct leaves.


A - @lucstrydom; B - @jkrenz; C - @tonyrebelo; D - @mr_fab

Oxalis bowiei
Distribution in Australia: broadly distributed across southern Australia, including southern WA, South Australia, Victoria, and NSW, plus a few rare records in SE Queensland.
Flowers: petals usually quite rounded and broad, overlapping, usually very rich/hot pink, sometimes paler, yellow-green throat (A).
Leaves: leaflets large (up to ~45 mm long), very rounded, shallow notch at apex (B).
General: This species is somewhat similar to Oxalis purpurea. Compared to O. purpurea, O. bowiei:

  • has many flowers per peduncle, compared to purpurea which only has one
  • usually has a much less prominent throat, compared to purpurea which typically has a very prominent, rich yellow throat
  • leaflets are weakly, yet nonetheless still noticeably, notched at the apex, compared to the usually unnotched and more circular leaflets of purpurea. Also, purpurea leaflets tend to be crowded to one side (whereas bowiei leaflets are arranged largely equidistant from each other on the petiole)
  • greenish-yellow petal bases obvious in closed flowers, compared to the usually much stronger/richer yellow petal bases present in purpurea.


A - @callys; B - @reginat

Oxalis brasiliensis
Distribution in Australia: similar distribution to O. articulata, spanning from the NSW border around southeastern Australia to Adelaide, but excluding Tasmania, and seemingly more restricted to major cities/large urban areas (although this may be due to sampling bias).
Flowers: petals usually broadly rectangular- or wedge-shaped (helps to differentiate from some of the other pink-flowering Oxalis, which have round petals), pale pink through to a rich pink-purple with distinct dark striations extending upwards from the throat. Almost always with a distinct dark-purple flush encircling the throat.
Leaves: leaflets usually squashed/flattened love heart-shaped with a typically quite shallow notch at the apex.
General: This species is very similar to Oxalis articulata. Compared to O. articulata, O. brasiliensis:

  • petals seems to more consistently be squatter and more wedge-shaped (A), compared to articulata which often seems to have more elongate rectangular petals (although both petal types are present in both species)
  • leaflets seem to more consistently be a little wider than they are long (B), compared to articulata where the leaflets seem to more consistently be a little longer than wide or roughly as long as wide.
  • the notches at the leaflet apices are typically shallower in O. brasiliensis
  • has bulbs + bulbils (C) instead of a woody rhizome.


A and C - @nomennudum; B - @garry34

Oxalis caprina
Distribution in Australia: WA (restricted to around Perth southwards to Bunbury), South Australia (Adelaide and a few old Kangaroo Island records) and Victoria (a single recent iNaturalist record near Truganina)
Flowers: petals usually very pale mauve or lilac, sometimes white or with faint blue-ish tinge, prominent yellow throat (A), petals with prominent yellow petal bases obvious in closed flowers (B).
Leaves: leaflets love heart-shaped, very prominently/strongly notched at the apex (C).
General: The strongly notched leaflets are quite distinct among the non-yellow flowering species, similar to those of Oxalis pes-caprae (a yellow flowering species)


A - @jamie2014; B - @plantrant; C - @willeminalunae

Oxalis debilis
Distribution in Australia: every state and territory in Australia, as well as Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island, although most records are concentrated along the east coast from Brisbane to Sydney.
Flowers: pale to rich pink (usually towards the rich end) with distinct dark striations extending upwards from the throat, usually prominent bright green throat (A).
Leaves: leaflets love-heart shaped, usually very fat and rounded, often with quite distinct wrinkle-like veins, notched at the apex (B). Leaves consistently large and towards the maximum end of their size range (leaflets 40-45 mm long)
General: Similar to flowers of O. articulata and O. brasiliensis, but O. debilis lacks the distinct dark-purple flush encircling the throat, and the throat of O. debilis flowers is usually a much more obvious bright green compared to the subtler and less extensive yellow-green throat of the other two.


A - @russellcumming; B - @vickymills

Oxalis depressa
Distribution in Australia: WA (two 1990s records from Busselton, plus what seems to be a small population at Bunbury recorded on iNaturalist)
Flowers: petals white (both WA specimens were noted to have white flowers), pale pink or hot pink (A). Throat rich yellow, petals with prominent yellow petal bases obvious in closed flowers.
Leaves: leaflets usually very rounded, rarely notched at the apex. Leaves usually noticeably asymmetrical, with the leaflets crowded towards one side. Leaves usually with conspicuously 'pebbly' looking surface (large epidermal cells) (B).
General: This species is very similar to Oxalis purpurea. Compared to O. purpurea, O. depressa:

  • has leaflets with a conspicuous 'pebbly' looking surface due to the large cells, whereas purpurea lacks these
  • is largely glabrous, whereas purpurea tends to be pubescent on the stems and often on the leaflet margins
  • has petals that seem to overlap less often than compared to purpurea, although this isn't the most reliable/consistent character.


A - @deans_beaver; B - @carinalochner

Oxalis flava
Distribution in Australia: WA (souhwest, mostly east of Perth), South Australia (Adelaide and surrounding region), and NSW (very rare, some 1950s records from Albury and an 1897 record from Sydney).
Flowers: petals for this species are usually yellow (sometimes with purple-brown edging, obvious in closed flowers (A)), but I have included it here as it also has a not uncommon white flowering form (and a seemingly rarer pink-purple form). For white-petalled specimens, the throat is prominent yellow (B).
Leaves: each leaf with 4-7 leaflets, leaflets usually slender, often folded lengthways and with hooked tips (C). These leaflets can be variable in shape, and are sometimes unfolded (D), but the large number of them (4-7) is a distinct feature compared to the other Oxalis here)
General: the leaves make this species unmistakeable.


A - @ydnewp2; B - @knysna_wildflowers; C - @darcywhittaker; D - @manfdot

Oxalis glabra
Distribution in Australia: WA (stretching along the eastern coast from around Jurien Bay all the way down to the south coast, although concentrated around Perth, plus a single iNaturalist record from between Ravensthorpe and Esperance), South Australia (around Adelaide) and Victoria (rare, near Melbourne and northwards).
Flowers: petals usually quite blocky/squarish, hot pink, prominent yellow throat (A), petals with prominent yellow petal bases obvious in closed flowers (B).
Leaves: leaflets small, usually elongate, slender, often weakly to moderately folded lengthways and weakly notched at the apex (C).
General: This species is quite similar to Oxalis hirta. Compared to O. hirta, O. glabra:

  • has glabrous petals, whereas in hirta the exterior of the petals are hairy
  • tends to have more glabrous leaves (but still often finely hairy), whereas hirta tends to be more pubescent
  • has petioles as long or longer than the leaves (petioles up to 22 mm long), whereas hirta has petioles much shorter than the leaves (petioles usually just 1-2 mm long)
  • has leaflets without glands on the lower surface, but with blister-like epidermal cells, whereas hirta has the opposite (many glands, no blister-like cells).
  • has leaflets that tend to be narrower (usually 1-2 mm wide), whereas hirta often has broader leaflets (up to 7 mm wide).
  • has mostly petiolate leaves that are mostly crowded towards the top of the stem, whereas hirta has almost sessile leaves distributed along most of the stem.


A and C - @russellcumming; B - @slaadi

Oxalis hirta
Distribution in Australia: WA (rare, very few scattered records in southwestern corner), South Australia (mostly greater Adelaide area and surrounds, one 1965 record from the Eyre Peninsula) and Victoria (mostly greater Melbourne area).
Flowers: petals usually quite blocky/squarish, hot pink (although there are also white and pale purple flowering forms), prominent yellow throat (A), petals with prominent yellow petal bases obvious in closed flowers, hairy on outside (B).
Leaves: leaflets small, usually elongate, slender, often weakly to moderately folded lengthways and weakly notched at the apex (C).
General: see comments above for comparison with Oxalis glabra


A - @insiderelic; B - @markberry; C - @alan_dandie

Oxalis incarnata
Distribution in Australia: broadly distributed across southern Australia, including WA (southwestern corner), South Australia (mostly greater Adelaide area), Victoria, NSW (Sydney southwards) and Tasmania.
Flowers: petals white or very very pale pink-purple (A), green throat, often prominent and with distinct striations extending upwards (B).
Leaves: leaflets love-heart shaped, moderately to strongly notched at the apex (C).
General: somewhat similar to Oxalis caprina, but O. incarnata has bigger flowers and an obvious green throat compared to the yellow throat of the former, plus incarnata also has a prominent stem (no aboveground stem in caprina) and only a single flower per peduncle (many per peduncle for caprina).


A - @light-up-gold; B - @bunts; C - @reiner

Oxalis latifolia
Distribution in Australia: broadly distributed across southeastern Australia from around Brisbane to Adelaide, including Tasmania, as well as scattered records near Townsville and Cairns, and a single recent iNaturalist record in Perth.
Flowers: petals pink-purple (rarely white), throat yellow with green striations (A). Each sepal with two conspicuous orange calli (calluses) at the apex (B).
Leaves: leaflets fish-tail shaped (C). Like Oxalis debilis, leaves are consistently large and towards the maximum end of their size range (leaflets 40-45 mm long)
General: largely unmistakeable given the size and shape of the leaflets.


A - @simon_hamlet; B and C - @thebeachcomber

Oxalis obtusa
Distribution in Australia: Victoria (mostly greater Melbourne, scattered records in Geelong and in regional Victoria near Bendigo, Beechworth and Seymour).
Flowers: petals very variable in colour, including very pale yellow (almost white), yellow, pink, and several shades of orange or orange-pink. Victorian plants tend to be pale yellow (A) or pink-orange. Throat rich, prominent yellow, surrounded by a rich orange ring. For most colour forms, the petals are covered in very prominent veins, visible on both surfaces (B).
Leaves: also variable, can be love-heart shaped or more linear/rectangular (C).
General: Although the leaves and flowers are both quite variable, the distinct petal venation usually makes this species quite obvious.


A - @spoonbilljames1995; B - @sequoia_l; C - @dhoare

Oxalis polyphylla (no Australian iNaturalist observations at time of writing)
Distribution in Australia: exceedingly rare (presumably as a garden escape for each record), with a single WA record (Mount Barker in the southwest), and two cemetery records (Canberra and Melbourne, possibly flowers placed on graves rather than naturalised plants). Also listed by APC as occurring in South Australia, but the ALA has zero collections or other records there.
Flowers: petals white, pale pink or pink purple, yellow throat (A).
Leaves: leaflets very elongate and slender (much longer than broad), often strongly folded lengthways (B), often clustered towards the top of the plant (C). Leaflet number variable, ranging from 3 to 8.
General: fairly distinct based on leaf morphology.


A - @renatakruyswijk; B - @knysna_wildflowers; C - @karooicus

Oxalis purpurea
Distribution in Australia: broad distribution across southern Australia spanning scattered records from as far north as K'gari, along the NSW coast, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and southwestern WA (with a few scattered records extending as far north as Geraldton).
Flowers: petals usually strongly overlapping, hot pink (sometimes paler pink) (A), with a white flowering morph also common (B). Throat rich yellow, petals with prominent yellow petal bases obvious in closed flowers.
Leaves: leaflets usually very rounded, rarely notched at the apex. Leaves usually noticeably asymmetrical, with the leaflets crowded towards one side (C).
General: the stems are often bright red (D). Oxalis depressa is a very similar species, see the entry for it above for a comparison.


A - @franksteenhuisen; B - @gillbsydney; C - @kezzza4; D - @thebeachcomber

Oxalis violacea (no Australian iNaturalist observations at time of writing)
Distribution in Australia: WA (scattered records along the coast from Albany to Perth).
Flowers: petals white, pink or pale purple, throat yellow-green with a distinct white/pale ring surrounding it (A).
Leaves: leaflets love-heart, squashed love-heart, or fish-tail shaped (like Oxalis latifolia), although usually smaller. Leaflets often with distinct purple bands on upper surface (not always present though) (B), and lower surface sometimes suffused with purple also.
General: similar to a number of other species when considering individual characters, but fairly recognisable looking at the combination of all of them.


A - @illinoisbotanizer; B - @smoyers24.

Publicado el julio 25, 2023 09:11 MAÑANA por thebeachcomber thebeachcomber | 26 comentarios | Deja un comentario