Montiaceae and Amaryllidaceae

Claytonia lanceolata vs Nothoscordum bivalve

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

Claytonia lanceolata, photographed by mfeaver
fig. a mfeaver, CC BY 4.0

Claytonia lanceolata

Lanceleaf Springbeauty
Nothoscordum bivalve, photographed by David Weisenbeck
fig. b David Weisenbeck, CC BY 4.0

Nothoscordum bivalve

crowpoison

How often our model gets it wrong measured, not estimated

When the plant was The model said How often
Claytonia lanceolata Nothoscordum bivalve 3 of 20 (15%)

The confusion runs one way only. The model mistakes Claytonia lanceolata for Nothoscordum bivalve, but not the reverse.

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

What actually separates themon the record

Family Montiaceae versus Amaryllidaceae. Different families, which is a real separation.
Genus Claytonia versus Nothoscordum.
Flowering Peaks in March versus August. If the plant is in flower, timing helps. (n = 968 and 2,535.)

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