Thymelaeaceae and Liliaceae

Daphne laureola vs Lilium humboldtii

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

Daphne laureola, photographed by Michelle Norcéide
fig. a Michelle Norcéide, CC BY 4.0

Daphne laureola

Spurge-laurel
Lilium humboldtii, photographed by Leah Gardner
fig. b Leah Gardner, CC0 1.0

Lilium humboldtii

Humboldt's Lily

How often our model gets it wrong measured, not estimated

When the plant was The model said How often
Lilium humboldtii Daphne laureola 3 of 20 (15%)

Measured on 38,299 openly licensed, research-grade photographs. Full method and dataset.

What actually separates themon the record

Family Thymelaeaceae versus Liliaceae. Different families, which is a real separation.
Genus Daphne versus Lilium.
Flowering Peaks in March versus June. If the plant is in flower, timing helps. (n = 849 and 821.)

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