Papaveraceae and Linaceae

Eschscholzia californica vs Linum rigidum

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

Eschscholzia californica, photographed by Loopy30
fig. a Loopy30, CC BY-SA 4.0

Eschscholzia californica

California poppy
Linum rigidum, photographed by Thomas Koffel
fig. b Thomas Koffel, CC BY 4.0

Linum rigidum

Yellow Flax

How often our model gets it wrong measured, not estimated

When the plant was The model said How often
Linum rigidum Eschscholzia californica 3 of 18 (17%)

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

What actually separates themon the record

Family Papaveraceae versus Linaceae. Different families, which is a real separation.
Genus Eschscholzia versus Linum.
Flowering Peaks in April versus April. Timing does not separate them. (n = 13,352 and 131.)

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