Warm weather and sun are in the forecast, and after a long and dreary winter here in Boston, we’re finally seeing hints of green in the landscape. For researches at the Arnold Arboretum, this means fieldwork! As buds swell, cones open, and flowers bloom, a flurry of biological activity returns to the grounds–and our team of photographers are working tirelessly to document the action and share it with the public. Using ArbPIX, the Arboretum’s plant image search tool, researchers, educators, students and plant lovers worldwide can explore the Arboretum’s living collection and discover a stunning range of plant diversity from their own devices!

To improve the search function of this ever-growing database, we’re asking for your help! As a TreeVersity volunteer, your contributions will add valuable metadata to this database as you identify morphological and phenological features in plant images. Along the way, you’ll learn about plant biology and have a chance to interact with researchers and fellow volunteers on the project’s discussion forum. You can check out the TreeVersity Twitter feed, Facebook page and blog (https://treeversity.wordpress.com/), where the project team frequently posts updates, articles and fun plant facts.

We’ve had some terrific participation so far, but we need your help to finish classifying our current batch of nearly 10,000 images! We’ve just reached 50% of the required classifications thanks to the hard work of over 1,700 TreeVersity volunteers. We still have a ways to go, and every classification counts. If everyone reading this post classified 150 photos, we’d be done before lunch!

TreeVersity newcomers: if you’d love to see a magnolia flower up close, learn how plants attract insect defenders, or find out what a “pneumatophore” might be (hint, it’s a cypress tree’s “knee”), then join the TreeVersity community and help us fight plant blindness around the globe! To sign up, visit https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/friedmaw/treeversity