Hello plant enthusiasts!

You have ten days left to photograph a late-flowering witch-hazel, bring home some bryophyte specimens or forensically identify the winter stems of some asters and goldenrods.

This isn't to say that you only have ten days left to submit observations to the project. I can't "close" the project to submissions at midnight on Dec 31st, and I don't think that would be particularly fair or helpful. In theory, you can submit observations to the project indefinitely, as long as they were observed between January 1 and December 31, 2018.

But for the purposes of declaring a "winner" of the Big Year and to hand out some bragging rights for those with the most sedges, most rare species, etc, I'm going to generate these statistics on the morning of January 1, 2019. So for those of you who are feeling competitive, consider the deadline to submit observations to be midnight on New Year's Eve.

I wish you all a wonderful holiday season filled with many walks in nature and many plants to identify.

-Will V