How to find the scientific name ? [botany]

[Externet]

Hello. 

Very purple cactii sourced with no label, no information.   How is the process to find the name of a species ?  The largest is ~ 6cm x 3cm

 

[CharonY]

If you are asking about the process, there are field guides where you go through a kind of flow chart of plant characteristics and arrive at the correct species when you answered all the points. Usually they are writtten for ageographic region, though.

[iNow]

1 hour ago, Externet said:

How is the process to find the name of a species ? 

Download the iNaturalist app. Take a picture. It’s really good about telling you what it is, including the scientific name 

[CharonY]

Shoot, another skill made obsolete, it seems.

[swansont]

26 minutes ago, iNow said:

Download the iNaturalist app. Take a picture. It’s really good about telling you what it is, including the scientific name 

iPhone will do this, though I’m not sure of its veracity. Take a picture, drag the bottom of the photo up. There’s an option to ID plants, if it recognizes a plant.

[iNow]

43 minutes ago, swansont said:

Take a picture, drag the bottom of the photo up.

Good call. I noticed this when it ID’d a pic of a groundhog we got in the front yard a week ago. Wasn’t the scientific name, but I probably could’ve clicked it to learn more 

 

And sure enough: clicking it brought me to the wiki which told me the scientific family 

Quote

The groundhog (Marmota monax), also known as the woodchuck, is a rodent of the family Sciuridae, belonging to the group of large ground squirrels known as marmots

 

Edited September 16 by iNow

[sethoflagos]

On 9/15/2024 at 11:31 PM, Externet said:

Hello. 

Very purple cactii sourced with no label, no information.   How is the process to find the name of a species ?  The largest is ~ 6cm x 3cm

 

Comb through Cactiguide.com

The link opens on a best guess candidate species I remember from my cactus collecting days.

The strange colour is obtained through propagation of a random sport. 

[sethoflagos]

Back in the '70s, the only species I recall seeing with this intensity of colour was Gymnocalycium mihanovichii (var. Hibotan), which had so little chlorophyll it had to be grafted onto (typically) a Hylocereus sp. rootstock.

It seems there are more of these options available these days.