Second data source · field observations

What iNaturalist covers

Herbarium sheets are the deep record and they are thin where it matters. Field observations are the opposite: shallow in time, and not thin at all. This page shows exactly how much of each we have, because a fruiting peak drawn from four records and one drawn from two hundred are different claims.

338,020

research-grade plant observations in Hawaiʻi

Anyone can add one. Identification is confirmed by other users before a record reaches this grade.

16,908

carry a phenology annotation

Someone opened the record and stated what the plant was doing. That is an assertion, not an inference.

4,894

record fruiting

Against 156 fruiting records from every Hawaiian herbarium sheet loaded here.

What is loaded here

1,093 annotated observations across 34 priority invasive species, contributed by 443 different people, every one georeferenced. That is a working sample, not the whole of what is available — the full annotated set for Hawaiian plants is roughly fifteen times larger.

Acacia mearnsii, recorded fruiting — Acacia mearnsii · 1999

Ardisia elliptica, recorded fruiting — Ardisia elliptica · 2026

Buddleja asiatica, recorded fruiting — Buddleja asiatica · 2025

Casuarina equisetifolia, recorded fruiting — Casuarina equisetifolia · 2025

Cenchrus setaceus, recorded fruiting — Cenchrus setaceus · 2026

Clidemia hirta, recorded fruiting — Clidemia hirta · 2026

Recorded in fruit · Darcy Kehler, Sean Ford, Ocean Fleskes, Dulcey Lima and others, licensed under Creative Commons

Acacia mearnsii, recorded flowering — Acacia mearnsii · 2018

Ageratina adenophora, recorded flowering — Ageratina adenophora · 2023

Ageratina riparia, recorded flowering — Ageratina riparia · 2026

Ardisia elliptica, recorded flowering — Ardisia elliptica · 2021

Buddleja asiatica, recorded flowering — Buddleja asiatica · 2023

Casuarina equisetifolia, recorded flowering — Casuarina equisetifolia · 2025

Recorded in flower · Chris Nelson, Olivier Niederhauser, dfoehring, Tony Iwane and others, licensed under Creative Commons

Roughly a fifth of iNaturalist photographs are all rights reserved and are not shown here at all. What appears is Creative Commons licensed, credited to the photographer, and links back to the original record.

Every observation, by month

all 34 species combined

fruiting · 436
flowering · 538
budding · 151

Where they were made

1,093 plotted

Oʻahu 147
Hawaiʻi 128
Kauaʻi 105
Maui 100
Lānaʻi 7
Molokaʻi 4

Islands are read from the place name attached to each observation, so the counts above are lower than the number of points on the map. Every observation carries coordinates regardless.

Species by species, against the herbarium

ranked by fruiting records

Why both sources, not one

Observations are dense, current and located to the metre, so they give a calendar for this year. Specimens reach back to the nineteenth century and can be physically re-examined by a specialist, so they are how change over decades is detected. Neither substitutes for the other, and the species pages say which one an answer rests on.

The ceiling they share

iNaturalist records fruiting. It does not record whether the fruit was ripe — its controlled vocabulary has no term for it, exactly as no herbarium field does. So the distinction that decides whether a treatment prevents spread or causes it is missing from both sources, and can only come from looking at the picture.

Which is what the scoring bench is for →