Phenology

[mossysal]

Hi, Tom,
I am bothered by putting flowering/fruiting stages on sheets as I don't think one can do grasses and sedges from these photos? If one takes a guess it defeats the object of doing the phenology from them!
Could you give a ruling, please?
TIA
Sarah

[Tom Humphrey]

At present I think that much of the phenology data being collected is not very useful - for so many sheets it's really subjective.

Another problem is that for much analysis of, repeat observations from the same site are really needed - something that most general nationwide herbarium data doesn't provide.

Consequently unless it's really obvious please just ignore the 'flowering state' field. I probably should drop it from all but a very select subset of records.

(Berkeley's way of recording flowering state - used for the GOD sheets - is better as multiple flowering states can be recorded, with far greater precision - but this is more time consuming and complex so I don't plan to adopt it for all specimens)

regards,

Tom

[mossysal]

That's pretty much what I thought - and hoped - you would say!

But what about review? It seems daft to say for example that a grass or sedge is fruiting when it is a nice distinction anyway (I suppose once anthers/stigmas have disappeared?) even if you could see!

Perhaps if you are not rating the data it doesn't matter too much what people have put in?

Sarah

[Tom Humphrey]

I doubt it's worth making changes to the phenology field entries - if serious attempts are made to use that data then the records will need to be rechecked anyway - and it will only be a few species that are feasible to look at.

regards,
Tom