Metaflora
June 4, 2024 10:09 AM Subscribe
Metaflora: “The family tree of the plant kingdom (which scientists call Viridiplantae) is broad and beautiful... but also complex! Metaflora is a game that tests your green thumb by seeing how well you can navigate its leafy branches. Your goal is to figure out today's Mystery Plant in as few guesses as possible. Wrong guesses will narrow down the answer by taxonomic rank (kingdom, phylum, class, order, etc.) The more your guess has in common with the answer, the more you will learn about the Mystery Plant.” Previously and related: Metazooa.
Well, today I learned what a "50 kb inversion clade" is!
posted by mittens at 10:48 AM on June 4 [2 favorites]
posted by mittens at 10:48 AM on June 4 [2 favorites]
The descriptions start off very helpful like "These are flowering plants", but all too quickly become "The mosoptarsials are hepotcarpic legumoids in the fnordic family".
I'm sure that is very helpful to some people, but not so much to me.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 11:35 AM on June 4 [7 favorites]
I'm sure that is very helpful to some people, but not so much to me.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 11:35 AM on June 4 [7 favorites]
I was doing terrible at this, but it did remind to go play Metazooa whereupon I got today's in 3 guesses. That felt good! Sometimes it's about the journey, not the destination.
posted by Zargon X at 11:42 AM on June 4 [1 favorite]
posted by Zargon X at 11:42 AM on June 4 [1 favorite]
Jesus H Christ, I narrowed it down to Acacia and then it won't provide more hints. Wikipedia helpfully tells me "There are about 1080 species of Acacia"
WHAT IS THIS DAMN PLANT
posted by caution live frogs at 11:56 AM on June 4 [4 favorites]
WHAT IS THIS DAMN PLANT
posted by caution live frogs at 11:56 AM on June 4 [4 favorites]
I am an honest-to-goodness Plant Biologist, and Metaflora is WAY HARDER than Metazooa imo. Today's was extra hard. I could think of a number of things in that subfamily that weren't in the answer list. I often look at the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group's tree of all the orders while I contemplate my next guess.
posted by vortex genie 2 at 12:08 PM on June 4 [4 favorites]
posted by vortex genie 2 at 12:08 PM on June 4 [4 favorites]
Mimosoideae?! Then why couldn't I guess mimosa as a soon as I saw Fabaceae?! ANd neither locust tree is allowed as a guess. Eventually I typed each letter of the alphabet to see which plants were on their list to see what could be reasonable guesses.
posted by ockmockbock at 12:47 PM on June 4 [1 favorite]
posted by ockmockbock at 12:47 PM on June 4 [1 favorite]
yeah, I had the same problem with the allowed words to guess, no mimosa for me.
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 1:23 PM on June 4 [3 favorites]
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 1:23 PM on June 4 [3 favorites]
I'm also a biologist and this was interesting! I really wish they would let you input things by a scientific name because that's how I know most of my plants having had a Western science focused biology degree.
posted by snowysoul at 1:27 PM on June 4 [5 favorites]
posted by snowysoul at 1:27 PM on June 4 [5 favorites]
Eventually I typed each letter of the alphabet to see which plants were on their list to see what could be reasonable guesses.
I did this too and came up totally dry.
posted by showbiz_liz at 1:28 PM on June 4
I did this too and came up totally dry.
posted by showbiz_liz at 1:28 PM on June 4
I got it in 19, so, winning!
(Okay I was on the phone to a botanist friend for nearly an hour, and now I owe her dinner because of some online game. But that's irrelevant. I won.)
posted by Wordshore at 1:58 PM on June 4 [1 favorite]
(Okay I was on the phone to a botanist friend for nearly an hour, and now I owe her dinner because of some online game. But that's irrelevant. I won.)
posted by Wordshore at 1:58 PM on June 4 [1 favorite]
Good god plants are complicated.
If you start typing in the input box it will suggest things, which is helpful for people like me, or more specifically, people who are usually blissfully unaware of the vast vast amounts of plant knowledge that are out there.
posted by Vatnesine at 2:45 PM on June 4
If you start typing in the input box it will suggest things, which is helpful for people like me, or more specifically, people who are usually blissfully unaware of the vast vast amounts of plant knowledge that are out there.
posted by Vatnesine at 2:45 PM on June 4
I really wish they would let you input things by a scientific name
Good heavens, yes. A larger database, A, that includes scientific name, B, would remove most of my justified frustration with this game (as compared to my unjustified frustrations, which include "why not lupines? why don't you include lupines?")
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 2:57 PM on June 4 [4 favorites]
Good heavens, yes. A larger database, A, that includes scientific name, B, would remove most of my justified frustration with this game (as compared to my unjustified frustrations, which include "why not lupines? why don't you include lupines?")
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 2:57 PM on June 4 [4 favorites]
I have a degree in botany and got it in 10, but I wasted a lot of time typing in genera. There don't seem to be enough genera entered in this to make it reasonable.
posted by acrasis at 4:37 PM on June 4
posted by acrasis at 4:37 PM on June 4
I have about 1/3 of a degree and I got in 17!
Totally works backwards, but, once I figured out how it worked, did OK. The pictures of things threw me off. Why are you showing me a picture of a beach or a tree?
posted by Windopaene at 7:32 PM on June 4
Totally works backwards, but, once I figured out how it worked, did OK. The pictures of things threw me off. Why are you showing me a picture of a beach or a tree?
posted by Windopaene at 7:32 PM on June 4
Got it in 2. First guess was oak. Second guess was the solution.
That should not have worked.
I tried metazooa and barely got the animal, after taking three hints and being on question 20.
posted by Hactar at 7:50 PM on June 4
That should not have worked.
I tried metazooa and barely got the animal, after taking three hints and being on question 20.
posted by Hactar at 7:50 PM on June 4
I tried Metazooa and more often than not got to species level guessing then stalled out. This felt mostly the same.
posted by Ferreous at 8:55 PM on June 4
posted by Ferreous at 8:55 PM on June 4
Least favorite Metaflora clades: legume family, citrus, anything in the order Malpighiales
Least favorite Metazooa clades: birds, arthropods
Once you land on something in the neighborhood of, say, lemon, or chickpea, or anything avian, it's gonna be a slog.
Inordinate fondness for beetles, indeed
posted by vortex genie 2 at 12:06 AM on June 5
Least favorite Metazooa clades: birds, arthropods
Once you land on something in the neighborhood of, say, lemon, or chickpea, or anything avian, it's gonna be a slog.
Inordinate fondness for beetles, indeed
posted by vortex genie 2 at 12:06 AM on June 5
god damn this thing needs to know more about guessable species names, and less about goddamn mid-level taxa
posted by away for regrooving at 12:24 AM on June 5 [3 favorites]
posted by away for regrooving at 12:24 AM on June 5 [3 favorites]
Wheee, got today's in 13 guesses and if I accomplish nothing else today, at least I'll have that.
posted by missmobtown at 7:56 AM on June 5 [1 favorite]
posted by missmobtown at 7:56 AM on June 5 [1 favorite]
My level of botany knowledge is "plant NOS" so I went to Metazoa where I pretty quickly realized that I can name like 4 fishes.
posted by neuron at 8:43 AM on June 5
posted by neuron at 8:43 AM on June 5
"iris: not found in database"- sorry, what?
Got it in seven today, but I am also irked that you must play with common names. I mean, if this means anything to you "Liliopsida (Petrosaviidae): Liliopsida is a botanical name for the class containing the family Liliaceae. It is considered synonymous with the name monocotyledon." then you're probably going to use botanical nomenclature, so there should at least be an allowance for both as they are both in the database. It's... kind of not a well thought out game. You can't work your way down the tree buy guessing class, subclass, or genus. Basically the structure doesn't really reward knowing botany, and doesn't help if you don't, because this:
The lily family, Liliaceae, consists of about 15 genera and 610 species of flowering plants within the order Liliales. They are monocotyledonous, perennial, herbaceous, often bulbous geophytes.
tells the average person nothing helpful other than you must guess among 610 species of flowering plants (but only a few are actually in the database), and that it is likely bulbous.
posted by oneirodynia at 12:11 PM on June 5
Got it in seven today, but I am also irked that you must play with common names. I mean, if this means anything to you "Liliopsida (Petrosaviidae): Liliopsida is a botanical name for the class containing the family Liliaceae. It is considered synonymous with the name monocotyledon." then you're probably going to use botanical nomenclature, so there should at least be an allowance for both as they are both in the database. It's... kind of not a well thought out game. You can't work your way down the tree buy guessing class, subclass, or genus. Basically the structure doesn't really reward knowing botany, and doesn't help if you don't, because this:
The lily family, Liliaceae, consists of about 15 genera and 610 species of flowering plants within the order Liliales. They are monocotyledonous, perennial, herbaceous, often bulbous geophytes.
tells the average person nothing helpful other than you must guess among 610 species of flowering plants (but only a few are actually in the database), and that it is likely bulbous.
posted by oneirodynia at 12:11 PM on June 5
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AskMe already has claimed "The Green", but there are shades available for further MetaExpansion.
posted by DigDoug at 10:36 AM on June 4