Table 1.

Observations of a ‘portion of a plant’ generate an output trait called a ‘data item’, but these need to be translated into descriptions of phenological traits for the associated ‘whole plant’. Below is the logical mapping used by the pipeline to make those translations. For example, if an observer reports a lower count of five flowers and upper count of 10 on a herbarium specimen image of a ‘portion of a plant’, the qualitative reporting is ‘present’ for ‘portion of a plant’. The mapping for the whole plant output is a lower count of five and an undefined upper count, because it is impossible to know how many flowers were actually on the whole plant.a

‘portion of a plant’ observation data		Output data for the ‘whole plant’
Qualitative	Quantitative	Qualitative	Quantitative
Absent	‘lower count’ == 0, ‘upper count’ == 0	Undefined	‘lower count’ = undefined; ‘upper count’ = undefined
Present	‘lower count’ > 0, ‘upper count’ ≥ ‘lower count’	Present	‘lower count’ is the same as for the ‘portion of a plant’; ‘upper count’ = undefined

^aDouble equal sign signifies “equals,” whereas single equal sign signifies “is.”