Actaea pachypoda vs Actaea rubra
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, 6 times. We publish the rate, and then we tell you what actually separates them.
Side by sidefigs. a and b
Actaea pachypoda
Actaea rubra
How often our model gets it wrong measured, not estimated
| When the plant was | The model said | How often |
|---|---|---|
| Actaea pachypoda | Actaea rubra | 3 of 20 (15%) |
| Actaea rubra | Actaea pachypoda | 3 of 19 (16%) |
The confusion is asymmetric, which is common and usually informative: it means one of these has a character the other lacks, rather than the two simply looking alike.
Measured on 38,949 openly licensed, research-grade photographs. Full method and dataset.
What actually separates themon the record
| Family | Both Ranunculaceae. The family does not separate them. |
|---|---|
| Genus | Both Actaea. Congeners, which is why this is hard. |
| Flowering | Peaks in May versus May. Timing does not separate them. (n = 881 and 1,246.) |
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.