Botanical Accuracy: Lichen or Moss - that is the hard question... also for science editors

Thursday, August 18, 2016

Lichen or Moss - that is the hard question... also for science editors

It appears that New Scientist needs to rename their recent story " Without oxygen from ancient moss you wouldn’t be alive today" to something more like "Without oxygen from lichens you wouldn’t be alive today", based on their featured image. The story was posted on their website on a few days ago, and features new research findings of how the earliest land plants (bryophytes/mosses) helped put oxygen in the atmosphere; here is the webpage:

Screenshot from New Scientist website (link) by BotanicalAccuracy.com, 18 Aug 2016. Fair use.

The story is based on a very interesting paper in PNAS by Timothy Lenton and colleagues at Exeter University. A science writer probably wrote up the text, but along came a photo editor, who went to a stockphoto gallery, in this case Getty images, to find a suitable image. And he/she selected a lichen, not a moss, since that 'moss' is what the photographer had written in the description. Nobody appears to have checked with the authors of the paper or any other botanists if the image was suitable or correct. (My advice for scientists is to always provide your own images for news stories, for exactly this reason.)

Screenshot from Getty Images by BotanicalAccuracy.com on 18 August 2016 of
'Close-Up of Moss on Rocks' photo (link), featuring a lichen, not a moss. Fair use.

The bushy, light-colored lichens of the genus Cladonia shown above (also known as reindeer lichens and many other names) are seemingly perpetually misidentified and mislabeled as mosses, I have written about this elsewhere here on the blog.
White lichens, green mosses, and Swedish Christmas...
Reindeer moss is a lichen, not a moss

So how to avoid mistakes like this? It would be very helpful if stock photo companies demanded accurate descriptions of photos, and if media checked the images with the people that know, not the least the authors of the paper that is featured. I can just imagine their frustration and possible horror to have their bryophyte story illustrated with a photo of a lichen, especially since there are so many gorgeous moss photos.

PS. Thanks to TT who notified me of this mistake, which hopefully will be corrected by the New Scientist editors very soon.
PS2. UPDATE: The photo is now corrected in the article in New Scientist.

What is Botanical Accuracy?

Would you care if someone called a cat 'a mouse' in the description of a medieval painting?

Would you care if someone served you horse meat, but said it was beef? I bet you would.

Would you care if the wrong chemical was listed in the ingredient list of your shampoo or cereal?

Would you care if you bought one plant, but got another?

Would you care if there were species or ingredient mistakes in advertising, menus, herbal pills, and such things?

Would you care if books on plants are illustrated with the wrong plants?

If so, here is the place for you to read about such problems in the world of plants and plant products, where unfortunately such mistakes, inaccuracies, and problems are not uncommon. This is usually due to lack of botanical knowledge or expertise, or sometimes because of plain ignorance.

Inaccuracies are common when it comes to plants, because it seems like we humans care to learn less about green things like trees, flowers, and herbs than we care to learn about animals, even when we eat plants, paint them, plant them, extract their chemicals, or use them in numerous other ways.

Without plants in the world you and I certainly would be dead. Some plants can also kill you with their toxins, so it is best to know which plant is what species. Time to learn some botany!

About mistakes, inaccuracies, and errors

Science is a process of gaining knowledge and understanding of the world around us. It is a never-ending process, and what we think are true facts today might change tomorrow. In science we are aiming for having the best understanding possible today based on what we and our predecessors have learned until now.

This means that what is botanically accurate from a scientific viewpoint might (and will) change. Other experts in the field of botany know a lot more about their particular research plants than I do. New scientific findings and conclusions are being published every day. This is just normal and part of the scientific process; we improve on our knowledge all the time.

The important thing is our willingness to continuously aim for botanical accuracy and the highest scientific standards in our use of names and facts. When things are wrong, let's correct them. Let us not perpetuate wrong botanical knowledge by accepting its incorrect use on commercial products, in everyday language, or in other parts of our contemporary cultures. Through scientific education and specific corrections we will improve botany and science for everybody, in supermarkets, restaurants, and garden centers.

It is the perpetuation of incorrect facts that are the problem, not the need for correction. Everybody makes mistakes, and everybody learns, throughout their lives. We need words to be able to communicate and talk about things, so let's use the right words and the right species names.

Undoubtedly there will be mistakes and errors on this blog, or things that need to be updated. If you want to get in touch, please e-mail me at botanicalaccuracy at gmail.com. If you see a mistake on this blog, e-mail me with the link to the post and an explanation what is incorrect and should be updated. If you represent a company and want to get in touch, please use the same e-mail address.