Privacy Policy

Go Botany is designed to gather and disseminate information about plant distribution and abundance across the six states of New England, USA, and adjacent provinces and states. This privacy policy governs the use of personal information from the site and you agree to be bound to this policy as a user of the Site.

Submitted information

Personal Information is voluntarily supplied by you when you register and submit data to the PlantShare sector of the Site. By registering at PlantShare, you allow us to associate your plant observations with a unique identifier (login name or your name), so that you can track your personal observations (e.g., checklists and customized maps). Profile Information allows us to gain a better understanding of the PlantShare participants and Go Botany visitors and to determine how best to improve the web site for Go Botany users.

You are able to view your personal observations (plant sightings, postings, and questions to the Botanist) and those of others (if they have made them available to you, your affinity group, or the web), so please be aware that your observations of species and their locations plus an supporting information you provide, may be available to other PlantShare users.

Plant observations are the most important pieces of information that we collect. Details of a plant sighting and its associated location (species, numbers, etc.) are available only to the users designated by you as a PlantShare member, which you choose upon uploading a sighting to the Site. Only information pertaining to plant observations is available to your selected users; no personal contact information is ever made public.

Cookies are pieces of data that we store on your computer to tie your information to the PlantShare program. Cookies allow you to store your login information, so that you will not be required to log in each time you visit the PlantShare web site.

Internet browsers allow you to determine whether or not to accept cookies (check under the preferences or options in the browser menu). If you decide not to accept cookies, you can still use the PlantShare site, but you will need to re-enter login information each time you visit.

Sensitive species

If you submit an unusual observation or a sighting of a plant known to be listed as Endangered, Threatened, Special Concern, Historic or Invasive in a New England state, we may e-mail you to request more details and to confirm your sighting. Your e-mail address and contact information will not be sold or distributed outside Native Plant Trust.

Your practices in obtaining sightings

As a conservation organization, Native Plant Trust seeks to limit disturbance to plants, especially those that are rare or occur on private property. Please do not trespass on private property to observe plants; always obtain landowner permission before gathering data on plants and posting sightings from private property. By posting a sighting, you are agreeing that all applicable landowner permissions have been obtained and that posting of locational and other data has been approved by the landowner.

Changes to this privacy policy

We may occasionally update or amend Native Plant Trust’s Privacy Statement. If we make changes, we will post the changes here.