This article aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the best plant identification apps available for Android and iOS. Plant identification apps use advanced image recognition technology to accurately identify the name and information of various plant species. With the increasing popularity of gardening and nature excursions in recent years, these apps have become crucial tools for both amateur and professional botanists. In this article, we will discuss the features, functionality, and usability of various plant identification apps, along with their pros and cons to help you choose the best one for your needs.
We have compiled a list of 10 Best Plant Identification Apps For Android & iOS for your consideration, which have undergone rigorous testing and evaluation by our team of experts.
Table of Contents
10 Best Plant Identification Apps For Android & iOS
1. Plantifier
Plantifier is a plant recognition tool that is crowdsourced and offered free of charge. Users can upload a photo of an unknown plant to the tool and the MyGarden.org community will try to recognize it and provide an answer to the user’s question. The tool is easy to use and accessible via the web at http://www.plantifier.com.
The MyGarden.org community is composed of individuals with an interest in gardening and plant identification. They volunteer their time and knowledge to help users of Plantifier identify unknown plants. The community is not composed of professional botanists or horticulturists, and therefore the accuracy of the identifications may vary.
To use Plantifier, users must upload a photo of the plant they wish to identify. The photo should be clear and focused on the plant’s features, such as leaves, flowers, or fruits. The community will then attempt to identify the plant based on these features. It may take some time to receive an identification, as the community members are volunteers and may not be available to respond immediately.
Plantifier is a useful tool for individuals who are interested in gardening, botany, or plant identification. It is free of charge and accessible via the web, making it convenient for users around the world. However, users should be aware that the identifications provided by the MyGarden.org community may not be completely accurate, as the members are not professional botanists or horticulturists.
2. Wild Edibles Forage
Title Master is a video editing app designed for those who love video and typography. With this app, users can create unique and professional-looking videos with animated text, graphics, and music. The app offers a variety of animation effects that allow users to customize their titles and achieve impressive individual character animation. A real-time preview is available to view the changes made to the video.
The app also supports the use of multiple layers of items, allowing users to unleash their creativity and come up with amazing professional animated designs. Key features of Title Master include the ability to use videos from a library or record new ones within the app. A timeline system is also available to help users select exact in and out points for their titles, graphics, and music.
Title Master offers an animation gallery for awesome title and graphic effects, with the duration and advanced configurations of the effects customizable. The app also supports individual character animation and the option to choose the order of animation. Additional features include blur animation for titles and stroke animation for graphics, build-in and build-out animations for titles and graphics, multiple fonts to choose from, and creative graphic stickers to enhance the video.
Users can clone, reorder, and move items directly in the timeline, and scale, move, and rotate items using common gestures. Editing text and changing title and sticker colors is also made easy with Title Master. Users can add background music from their music library and adjust clip and music volume as well. Title Master supports real-time preview and exporting videos to the camera roll or video library, as well as sharing on selected social networks.
The app’s creators aim to provide the best experience for users in creating their videos, and welcome suggestions and ideas. Users can contact the support team via email at titlemaster.support@dgmotionmobile.com.
3. PlantNet Plant Identification
Pl@ntNet is a mobile application that can identify plants through photographs taken by a smartphone camera. Developed as a citizen science project, the plants captured by users are collected and analyzed by scientists worldwide to gain a more comprehensive understanding of plant biodiversity and promote its preservation. The application can identify various types of plants living in nature, including flowering plants, trees, grasses, conifers, ferns, vines, wild salads, and cacti. It can also recognize cultivated plants, though this isn’t its main function. Wild plants found in the city and vegetable gardens are of particular interest.
For accurate identification, the application requires detailed visual information about the plant. Photographs of flowers, fruits, and leaves are essential as they are the most characteristic parts of a species. However, other details like thorns, buds, or hair on the stem can also be helpful. Photographs of the entire plant or tree provide useful contextual information but may not be sufficient for reliable identification. At present, the application can recognize about 20,000 species, but it is continuously growing with user contributions.
Released in January 2019, the new version of Pl@ntNet offers various improvements and new features. Users can filter recognized species by genus or family and benefit from a differentiated data revision that gives more weight to those who have demonstrated exceptional skills. Re-identification of shared observations, the ability to search for photographed plants in all available flora, selection of favorite floras, navigation at different taxonomic levels in image galleries, and mapping of observations are other features. The application also provides links to extensive factsheets.
Besides the mobile version, a web version of the application is also available at identify.plantnet.org.
4. Flora Incognita
The Flora Incognita App is designed to provide quick, easy, and accurate identification of plants. Users can simply take a picture of a flower or leaf using their smartphone camera, and the app will automatically identify the plant within seconds. The app also provides a species profile page with additional information such as characteristics, distribution, and protection status. Users can save, export, or share their plant observations on various social media channels.
It is important to note that the app is specifically designed for identifying wild plants, and does not support the breeding and crossing of garden or indoor plants. The app includes automatic identification of over 4800 plant species of the European wild flora, with species portraits for each species and information on appearance, toxicity, protection status, and distribution. The app also features a species list with a search and filter function, creation of observation lists, and an export function for observations.
The app goes beyond a pure destination app, with a “News” section that provides news and various join-in activities. Users with any questions can refer to the FAQs on the Flora Incognita website. The app collects location data to support plant mapping, which is only possible with location information for recorded plants.
Users can choose to use the app with or without creating an account. Creating an account allows users to save their recorded plant observations under their profile, which can be accessed on different devices. The Flora Incognita app is a collaborative effort between the Technical University Ilmenau and the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry Jena, funded by various government agencies. The project is recognized as an official project of the “UN Decade of Biodiversity”. Users can follow the project on the Flora Incognita website, Facebook, and Twitter.
5. iNaturalist
iNaturalist is a popular mobile application that enables users to identify plants and animals around them. With a community of over 400,000 scientists and naturalists, users can learn more about nature and contribute to the creation of research quality data by recording and sharing observations. The application is a collaborative effort between the California Academy of Sciences and the National Geographic Society.
The key features of iNaturalist include the ability to discover new species nearby or in remote areas, record personal observations and share them with the community, receive suggestions and crowdsource identifications of what has been seen, and engage in discussions and assist others in identifying what they have seen. Users can also join projects that consist of smaller communities and fellow citizen scientists with a shared interest in a particular place or species.
For additional information about iNaturalist, visit http://www.inaturalist.org.
6. PictureThis – Flowers&Plants Identification
PictureThis is a mobile application that provides users with a platform for identifying plants with ease. Apart from giving a detailed description of plants and tips on how to care for them, the app also offers users a chance to enjoy beautiful pictures of plants from around the world. The app has over 70,000,000 users who have benefited from the vast knowledge of plant species it offers.
PictureThis allows users to take photos of plants they come across and get instant results on their identification and detailed information about them. The app uses artificial intelligence to identify over 17,000 plant species with an accuracy of 98%. PictureThis is constantly learning from experts and specialists to improve its identification capabilities.
Users also have access to a growing community of plant lovers, horticulture specialists, and friendly guides who offer suggestions and advice on plant care. Additionally, the app provides users with plant care tips, water reminders, and a personal collection feature that helps them track all the plants they identify.
PictureThis is available on mobile devices and has a user-friendly interface that ensures users capture the best plant photos. The app is designed to help plant lovers connect, learn, and explore the vast world of plants.
PictureThis team aims to build a vibrant community of plant lovers and help more people gain knowledge of plants. The app is available on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, where users can connect and engage with the team.
7. PlantSnap – Identify Plants, Flowers, Trees&More
PlantSnap is an app that allows users to instantly identify over 600,000 types of plants, including flowers, trees, succulents, mushrooms, and cacti. In addition to identification, the app also provides gardening tips and advice for tens of thousands of plant species to help users care for their plants. With the PlantSnappers Community, users can connect with over 50 million nature lovers in over 200 countries to share photos and information about rare plants, flowers, trees, succulents, leaves, cacti, air plants, and mushrooms from around the world.
PlantSnap aims to plant 100 million trees in 2021 and plants a tree for each person who downloads the app and becomes a registered user. The app’s plant identifier feature allows users to take a picture of a plant and access information about its taxonomy, complete description, and care instructions. Users can also search for plants by name and learn about more than 600,000 species of flowers, leaves, trees, succulents, cacti, mushrooms, and more.
The Explore function allows users to use the SnapMap to find identified plants anywhere on the planet and see anonymous photos taken with PlantSnap. Users can also create their own plant collection and easily access their discoveries whenever they want. All photos saved in the collection are available on the web, and the app allows users to zoom in on photos to see every detail of the identified plants.
PlantSnap also offers gardening tips and advice on how to take care of plants and flowers, how to plant trees, how to take care of orchids, and much more. In addition to identification and care instructions, PlantSnap encourages users to become Citizen Scientists by photographing different plants they find in the park or garden and learning more about them through the app.
Ultimately, PlantSnap aims to provide a fun and educational way for users to interact with nature, make new friends, and help protect the planet.
8. Seek
Seek is an app that utilizes image recognition technology to help users identify various flora and fauna. By pointing the Seek Camera at living things, users can identify wildlife, plants, and fungi and learn about the organisms in their surroundings. The app also allows users to earn badges for observing different types of species and participating in challenges.
Seek draws from millions of wildlife observations on iNaturalist to provide users with lists of commonly recorded insects, birds, plants, and amphibians in their area. Users can scan the environment with the Seek Camera to identify organisms using the tree of life. Through this process, users can add different species to their observations and learn more about them. The more observations users make, the more badges they can earn.
This app is especially useful for families who want to explore nature together and for anyone interested in learning more about the life around them. Seek is also kid-safe, as it does not require registration and does not collect any user data by default. If users choose to sign in with an iNaturalist account, some user data will be collected, but only with permission from users over 13 or with their parents’ permission.
Seek respects user privacy by obscuring location services, yet still allowing species suggestions from the general area. Precise location is never stored in the app or sent to iNaturalist unless users sign in to their iNaturalist account and submit their observations. Seek’s image recognition technology is based on observations submitted to iNaturalist.org and partner sites and identified by the iNaturalist community.
Seek is an app created by the iNaturalist team, a joint initiative of the California Academy of Sciences and the National Geographic Society. The app was originally supported by HHMI Tangled Bank Studios and was enhanced with support from Our Planet on Netflix and WWF.
9. What’s that flower?
“What’s that flower?” is a mobile application designed to help users identify the name of a flower they have spotted in the park. By selecting the flower’s color, habitat, and number of petals, the app narrows down the options from over 1000 to a few dozen. Users can then scroll through the list of options and select the correct one. The app provides information about the flower, allowing users to expand their knowledge. It is important to note that an internet connection is required to run the application.
The app offers several in-app purchase options, including the ability to search for a flower by photo, make observations, use an offline mode, apply custom filters to change the order or number of filters, search for flowers using English or Latin names, and search within taxonomy. The app also provides the option to remove ads.
10. Nature Free – Europe
The app is a nature guide available in English, German, French, Italian, and Spanish, designed for outdoor enthusiasts and families. It allows for easy identification of over 850 plant and animal species in Europe, with more than 1500 images and 140 animal voices. The app does not feature automatic image recognition and is not a complete collection of all species.
An extended version of the app, called “Nature My,” contains over 2400 species. It includes lists of flowering plants, trees, shrubs, mushrooms, ferns, lichens, mosses, mammals, birds, insects, reptiles, amphibians, fishes, and invertebrates. The app also features search filters for fruits, traces, clutches, larvae, and caterpillars.
All important functions are available offline, making it a useful companion for nature walks and hikes. More information can be found online. The app does not claim to be scientifically accurate or complete, and users should not rely on it to distinguish between poisonous and edible or dangerous and non-dangerous species. The images and texts are sourced from free sources, and user data is kept to a necessary minimum.
The app’s privacy policy, terms of use, copyrights, and license terms are available at http://nature.saragozza.ch/app/policy.html. Users are encouraged to provide feedback, error messages, and suggestions for improvement. The free version of the app contains unrestricted access to species lists.