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A question of mine about tree identification, What's the difference between a redwood and a sequoia? was migrated to the gardening and landscaping section. While identification of plants is certainly within the scope of their site, we should ask what kinds of questions about flora might be within scope here.

Some other sample questions, of varying degrees:

  • Is this glowing fungus I found common?
  • Are these beefsteak mushrooms, can I eat them safely?
  • What kind of pine tree is this [with picture]?

How do we draw the line?

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Personally I wouldn't class any of those off-topic per-se. However, some questions such as the one linked probably fit better within gardening and landscaping if:

  • There's no explicit relation to another area of the outdoors; "What are the differences between redwood and sequoia in fire starting" for instance would squarely belong on this site
  • It refers to plants / trees commonly used in gardening / landscaping rather than ones only commonly found in the wild

So by those categories, I'd say the first 2 should belong on this site and the last one probably on gardening. It is a grey area though and I don't think there's any harm in leaving it that way and using discretion for these types of questions on an individual basis. There's definitely the potential for some overlap in this regard, but I wouldn't say it's enough to be a problem.

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I wouldn't have migrated your question to the gardening site - with one caveat. After all, no one (or almost no one) is growing redwoods and sequoias in their garden. They're trees encountered in exactly the contexts that this site address- the great outdoors! Most of the questions on the gardening site have to do with caring for and growing plants (although there are a lot of identification questions as well, they are usually followed by a "caring" question).

The one reason I can think of to move it to gardening is because - possibly - a greater number of plant experts might see it there and answer the question.

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