Welcome to the Illinois Botanists Big Year 2022!
Find the most plant species in Illinois in 2022 and rejoice in your victory! The year 2022 marks the seventh 😳 annual Illinois Botanists Big Year (ILBBY), a project of the Illinois Native Plant Society. Anyone may participate, from professional botanist to plant identification novice, by uploading photographic proof of their plant sightings to iNaturalist.
Each observation will automatically count toward the contest if you've joined the project and the observation meets the rules below.
Rules:
- Must be a plant (bryophytes and vascular plants – native and non-native species are accepted),
- Observed in Illinois,
- Observed in 2022 (and uploaded by January 15th, 2023), and
- Research Grade (that means it must be “wild/naturalized” and that you need a photo, date, location, and at least two people or >2/3 consensus on a species ID, in order to confirm the identification accuracy)
➡ Join the Illinois Botanists Big Year 2022
Curious about other ways to get involved than making observations? How about...
- helping identify or confirm IDs on other peoples' observations?
- focusing IDs on 2022 ILBBY contenders?
- adding even a coarse ID like "plant" or "bird" to the thousands of observations with no ID at all?
- annotating plants as budding, flowering, fruiting (or none of the above)?
- welcoming new users to iNaturalist, like these Illinois iNatters who joined within the past 3 weeks?
- exploring the 542,000 observations of plants that have been added to iNat in Illinois?
- browsing the long list of ways to help out on iNaturalist?
happy botanizing!
-cassi / @bouteloua
