Plant ID please

[biser]

I was given this by a friend last year. She wasn't totally sure what it was so I quarantined it in a pot and it now looks like this. What is it?

Fair enough! Too many people don’t, just take the app’s answer at face value without further research. It’s important to check whether the plant grows where you do, whether its habit is correct (someone on this board posted an id of a shrub - except the id was of a creeper a few cm high) whether it’s flowering when it’s supposed to, leaf shape, arrangement of leaves on the stem. In other words, the app is a starting point, not a definitive answer.

@Lonelycrab No-one’s saying apps always get it wrong. But they don’t always get it right, either, and when they miss, they miss by a mile.

Taking your cherry laurel as an example: you have a picture of the end of a branch. If you were standing in front of a tree about 4m, you would want to check whether cherry laurel grows that tall (it does). You’re doing those checks, too many people aren’t.

It’s not hard to think of groups where the app would struggle. Yellow “dandelion type” flowers where diagnostic features include forked hairs on the underside of the leaf, or chaffy bits when you split open the flower head; forget-me-nots where you want to know whether the tiny hairs on the stem are sticking out or lying flat; violets, distinguished by the sepals and spur behind the flower, which most people don’t think of including in their photo.