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I'm following the tag, and since quite some months, there seems to be a lot of Indian plant identification questions by "anonymous" new users (some of them answered by similar type of users).

Example: What is the name of this plant has dazzling look like leaves?

Has anyone an idea of what is happening?

Edit: More examples

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  • $\begingroup$ Do you think something is wrong? As in, do you suspect some of those posts to be spam? $\endgroup$
    – AliceD Mod
    Jul 24, 2017 at 10:44
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    $\begingroup$ This doesn't look like spam. I'm just curious what caused this phenomenon. Some kind of plant ID challenge in India? $\endgroup$
    – bli
    Jul 24, 2017 at 11:32
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    $\begingroup$ With a population of 1.3 billion the number of posts from that region can be explained quite readily. The density of plant IDs is however quite obscure. $\endgroup$
    – AliceD Mod
    Jul 24, 2017 at 13:44
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    $\begingroup$ However, searching for 'India Plant' gives only 36 hits, with only 3 for this year? Can you add a screen shot or something to back up your stats? $\endgroup$
    – AliceD Mod
    Jul 24, 2017 at 13:47
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    $\begingroup$ I love to know names of plants in my vicinity. Today's generation cannot even identify a simple mango tree. Bio in class 11 and 12 ,forces us learn plant botanical names.. Which increases are craze towards them. $\endgroup$
    – Anubhav Goel
    Jul 24, 2017 at 22:11
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    $\begingroup$ @AliceD I added examples of such questions from the last two months. There are more Indian plant ID questions, but those are from "non-anonymous" users. You may be right that this is simply a bias due to the huge size of Indian population (plus the fact that this is an english-speaking forum). $\endgroup$
    – bli
    Jul 25, 2017 at 7:17
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    $\begingroup$ If higher crowd of users is the only cause, then other questions (such as animal-id question and non-species-id-related questions), too, would show equal proportion of increment of participation. But is really stats showing that? (I don't know to use SE data or analysis features). $\endgroup$
    – Always Confused
    Jul 25, 2017 at 11:01
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    $\begingroup$ Big Animals are not so common in cities. (Mostly city people use such sites). So, I dont ask about them. And often animals are dangerous and mobile, while plants are harnless. Its easier to take their photo and ask about it. May be being Vegetarian also contributes towards it(Slightly on me😜). $\endgroup$
    – Anubhav Goel
    Jul 26, 2017 at 20:10
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    $\begingroup$ There was a meta discussion about one particular user who was coming asking about every plant he passed in a given day: biology.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/3667/… Maybe that user could be behind some of these new anonymous ones? I haven't looked at the new ones to see if the style matches. The problem with those was that they were just uninteresting...there was no background to the question, just "here's a plant, what is it?" Very unlikely to ever be of use to anyone else in the future. $\endgroup$
    – Bryan Krause Mod
    Jul 28, 2017 at 22:50

1 Answer 1

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Love for nature. I love to know names of plants in my vicinity. Today's generation cannot even identify a simple mango tree.

School syllabus for Medical stream in highschool Bio in class 11 and 12 ,forces us learn plant botanical names.. Which increases are craze towards them. This is also usually time when we come across these sites.

Fear of animals Big Animals are not so common in cities. (Mostly city people use such sites). So, I dont ask about them. And often animals are dangerous and mobile, while plants are harmless. Its easier to take their photo and ask about it.

Food Half the people in world live to eat, other half have to eat to live. May be being Vegetarian also contributes towards it(Slightly on me😜). I was talking to my mother yesterday about difference in spinach and raddish leaves. We eat leves of both. Then, we came to conclusion, if, we find simillar other leaves our society would start eating that too and makes a nice religious folk of that too.

Since, here vegen is a a major part of our food, evolutionary we are destined to gain more and more knowledge of it.

If we find something new plant outside, our limbic system will start its evaluation for diet.

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  • $\begingroup$ +1 for "Today's generation cannot even identify a simple mango tree" ;P $\endgroup$
    – another 'Homo sapien'
    Aug 1, 2017 at 7:06
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    $\begingroup$ So you learn botanical names of plants at school but do not learn how to identify them (mango trees)? It seems there is something wrong with this approach. $\endgroup$
    – skymningen
    Aug 1, 2017 at 8:22
  • $\begingroup$ We do learn how to identify them, but not so specifically, we are taught families ( liliaceae brassicaceae, solanaceae, poaceae, fabaceae atmost, no more one shall expect) . We are told inflorescence , leaves pattern etc, then examples are given for them. But these cannot help us to distinguish between myraids of species with identical features. $\endgroup$
    – Anubhav Goel
    Aug 1, 2017 at 14:56
  • $\begingroup$ But , it is also true nothing more is expected of us as well, as most of us want to pursue MBBS. There is no such race for being botanist here. This much knowledge seems to be enough for todays world doctors, they dont make their own medicines now a days, like use to be from time immemorial till recent past 50-100 years. $\endgroup$
    – Anubhav Goel
    Aug 1, 2017 at 15:00
  • $\begingroup$ So, it is fare for them for such syllabus. What we need is, a habit to indulge in new generation to ask such things to their parents, to elders, to nearby nursuries, then at last internet. $\endgroup$
    – Anubhav Goel
    Aug 1, 2017 at 15:03
  • $\begingroup$ Love it!! Community: Will the real batman stand up please? Anubhav: Raises hand! $\endgroup$
    – Failed Scientist
    Aug 2, 2017 at 15:15
  • $\begingroup$ @TalhaIrfan Woh mai ni hoon. Thode din pehle, maine serial voting try ki thi.. Pr, ID ke question maine ni dale.. $\endgroup$
    – Anubhav Goel
    Aug 3, 2017 at 12:03

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