Plant identification app

[elephantoverthehill]

Can anyone recommend me one please? Many thanks.

Picture this

Thanks I'll give it a go.

Do not use it, or any app, to give you the answer. Use it for a starting point, then google the answer given, and consider various questions, eg does this plant have the same growth form (eg bush, creeper, tree) as mine? Does it grow in the UK? Do the flowers look the same? Do the leaves look the same? Is the flowering period right? And so on.

Apps are merely matching patterns of coloured pixels. They can get things quite stunningly wrong.

'Picture this' is brilliant but after the free trial it's quite expensive.

'Seek' is an ok one considering its free

They're all pretty inaccurate. Os it for garden species or natives/wildflowers?

Google lens generally works well I've found.

You don’t need to pay to use it. It asks you each time but you can close the subscribe screen via the greyed out Cancel in the corner. I’ve used it free for years.

What @MereDintofPandiculation and @SuePreemly said! They can be useful, but never, ever rely on them and take their id as being correct without checking, checking, cross referencing and checking again - they are, as MereDint said, frequently massively wrong!

I like picture this. Agree it is frequently wrong, but it is frequently right too. I have learned a fair amount and sometimes been surprised at things it does know. Ds grew some tropical plants from seed and it was right, even down to the variety. Of course they all died over winter, as the weather here is the opposite of tropical. Definitely don't use it to decide whether something is edible though!

Google Lens

Plant Net app

Are any of these apps good for wild flowers if they are growing say by a path mixed in with other wild flowers?

I use Flora Incognita

I got flora Incognita recently, it seems to do quite well. I just tried it on this photo, which is very like one which bamboozled the apps when someone posted it here some time ago, it gets it right. The identifier thingy in the apple photos app gave two wrong suggestions nothing like right even though it's not exactly obscure. I don't think the apps yet beat knowledgable humans but as @MereDintofPandiculation says, they may provide a starting point if you can't wait to post here and ask

If there's a mix I think you might need to zoom in and crop the photo or 'erase' parts around the plant you're interested in.

Thank you for your input. My sister has moved into a new house and is trying to identify some trees and shrubs in her garden and asked me about plant identification apps. I did use one a few years ago but let it lapse when it wanted to start me paying. Anyway this is the shrub/tree she wants to find, if anyone has any idea

If you’ve got an iPhone there’s a plant ID function in the photos app you can click on.

Sorry it won't let me add photos atm

Here we go

Same caveats apply to apps for wildflowers. Perhaps even more so, for example, even an expert would hesitate to distinguish between species of forget-me-not or violet from a photo unless particular features (hairs on stems or sepals) were shown, preferably in close-up.

That's the one which currently can't correctly ID a basket of sweet pea seedlings.

First pic looks like a willow. In the second pic it’s next to something with opposite leaves so my mind would be straying towards Cornus. Third we’d need a close up but initial reaction is a cherry for the one on the right. Rest is too out of focus

Number 1 looks like goat willow due to the red stem. My neighbour has one, so I get a few thousand for free every year.

I can't tell which plant you want identifying in the other two pics. Closer would be better.

Hopefully some better photos of the last one to identify. There are no flowers or catkins on it in the spring, apparently.

The leaves are a grey colour on the back.