Asteraceae and Apiaceae

Achillea millefolium vs Angelica hendersonii

These two are not on this page because a keyword tool suggested them. They are here because our own identification model genuinely mistook one for the other, on real photographs, 3 times. We publish the rate, and then we tell you what actually separates them.

Confused 3x by our model Method published

Side by sidefigs. a and b

Achillea millefolium, photographed by Lynn Harper
fig. a Lynn Harper, CC0 1.0

Achillea millefolium

common yarrow
Angelica hendersonii, photographed by Caleb Catto
fig. b Caleb Catto, CC BY 4.0

Angelica hendersonii

Henderson's angelica

How often our model gets it wrong measured, not estimated

When the plant was The model said How often
Angelica hendersonii Achillea millefolium 3 of 20 (15%)

Measured on 38,949 openly licensed, research-grade photographs. Full method and dataset.

What actually separates themon the record

Family Asteraceae versus Apiaceae. Different families, which is a real separation.
Genus Achillea versus Angelica.
Flowering Peaks in July versus July. Timing does not separate them. (n = 16,046 and 269.)

What we do not have yet: the diagnostic morphological character that a botanist would key on, from a source we can cite. We are not going to invent one. Until we have it, this page tells you the two are genuinely confusable, how often, and what the taxonomy and the flowering data do and do not settle.

Both recordsfull pages