Friday, August 11, 2017

Identifying Plants with Cell Phone Apps

Hawaii's Skeleton Flower

On a garden tour recently, when I asked someone if she knew the name of a particular plant, much to my amazement, she whipped out her cell phone, took a photo of it, and used the Pl@ntNet App to find the answer. (Know that I'm not a cell phone enthusiast, so am probably the last person to know these things. Though I view cell phones dismally because everyone I see has their face in one all of the time, I was quite impressed with this particular use of it.)

The Pl@ntNet App's functional capability is constantly upgraded and improving through user contributions. It began with European plants and now also includes many plants from South America and the U.S.

This is not the only app set up to identify plants. Others are listed here: The best apps to identify unknown plants and flowers

But plant identification isn't the only thing gardeners are using apps for.

Also see: Apps for gardening are getting better all the time - Mobile gardening apps are getting better all the time, supplanting manuals and magazines as the way people dig for information