Both Lamiaceae

Stachys palustris vs Teucrium canadense

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

Stachys palustris, photographed by luluchouette
fig. a luluchouette, CC BY 4.0

Stachys palustris

Marsh Woundwort
Teucrium canadense, photographed by saltyhiker
fig. b saltyhiker, CC BY 4.0

Teucrium canadense

American germander

How often our model gets it wrong measured, not estimated

When the plant was The model said How often
Stachys palustris Teucrium canadense 3 of 20 (15%)

The confusion runs one way only. The model mistakes Stachys palustris for Teucrium canadense, but not the reverse.

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

What actually separates themon the record

Family Both Lamiaceae. The family does not separate them.
Genus Stachys versus Teucrium.
Flowering Peaks in August versus July. If the plant is in flower, timing helps. (n = 1,511 and 2,233.)

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