Both Liliaceae

Lilium martagon vs Medeola virginiana

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, 5 times. We publish the rate, and then we tell you what actually separates them.

Confused 5x by our model Method published

Side by sidefigs. a and b

Lilium martagon, photographed by J V
fig. a J V, CC BY 4.0

Lilium martagon

Martagon Lily
Medeola virginiana, photographed by Erik Schiff
fig. b Erik Schiff, CC0 1.0

Medeola virginiana

Cucumber Root

How often our model gets it wrong measured, not estimated

When the plant was The model said How often
Lilium martagon Medeola virginiana 5 of 17 (29%)

The confusion runs one way only. The model mistakes Lilium martagon for Medeola virginiana, but not the reverse.

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

What actually separates themon the record

Family Both Liliaceae. The family does not separate them.
Genus Lilium versus Medeola.

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