Best Free Plant Identifier App (iOS & Android)
If you’re ever unclear about the tree species in your yard or garden, there are several free plant identifier apps available that can help. These tree identification apps use photographs or drawings of trees to identify them, and they can be a handy resource if you need to know the name of a specific tree but don’t have time to go out and look at it.
Various classification schemes exist for trees. Different types of trees have unique characteristics that influence these characteristics. Trees can be identified by examining their leaves, bark, general crown appearance, blooms, fruits if they have any, and other distinctive features.
An app that can help you identify plants quickly and easily if you are a gardener, biologist, survivalist, or prepper is handy.
Because there are tens of thousands of distinct tree species in the wild, it’s nearly difficult to memorize the properties of each one. Because of this, having an app installed on your phone is the most convenient and time-saving method for determining the type of shrub you’re looking at.
A slew of specialized applications can help you identify rare and exotic species and ornamental plants and culinary and medicinal plants, and common plants. Numerous gardening tools are available to help you maintain your plants, including watering reminders, journaling, and garden administration.
We’ll be able to determine the requirements of certain plants if we know what we’re looking at. Many species must be identified, and a wide range of applications must be selected. In other words, how can you go through all of the available apps to get the best one for plant identification?
How Did We Pick the Best Tree Identification App?
We performed some research and came up with this list of the top plant identification apps for both Android and iOS smartphones, considering a large number of plant enthusiasts.
We’ve compiled a handy collection of some of the top free and paid plant identification apps available, along with some more that we think are worth mentioning. When it comes to caring for your houseplants or indoor plants , there is no limit to the number of equipment and accessories you may have!
Additionally, towards the conclusion of this article, you’ll discover a list of some of the most excellent gardening apps we’ve come across. Plant identifiers are included in all three, but you’ll be able to organize your casual gardening activities better and provide your plants with the plant care tips they require by using any or all of them.
Best Free plant identifier App
Finding the right plant can be difficult, but with the ease with technology, it just got a little easier. There are many different plant identifier apps on the market, but which one is the best? After testing several other apps, we have found these free plant identifier apps to be the best.
PlantNet Plant Identification
PlantNet is a free plant identifier app that helps you identify plants by leaf, flower, and fruit. The app also includes trees, grasses, and ferns. You can take a picture of the plant with your phone’s camera or choose one from your photo library. PlantNet then identifies the plant for you and provides information about it, including where it grows, its use, and how to care for it.
How this free plant identifier app Works:
As long as a user has entered the plant in its database, you may use this plant identification program to identify it. Its database claims over 20,000 species, which it promises to increase with each new species discovered.
Like any plant-identification tool, keep in mind that positioning and quality of the shot are crucial. There is a how-to instruction on the Pl@ntnet website that might be helpful in this regard.
If a plant is recognized, the app offers several plants that are similar to it so that the user may confirm their pick and add it to their database. It is also possible to search by family, genus, or species using Pl@ntnet’s huge plant database.
iNaturalist
A large part of our daily lives revolves around plants. From the food we eat to the air we breathe, plants are everywhere. Unfortunately, some people don’t know much about plants, but they can make a difference in helping us understand and care for the planet. That’s why iNaturalist was created.
iNaturalist is a free app that enables you to identify plants by their physical characteristics and species. You can also share your observations and plant photos with other iNaturalist users worldwide.
The California Academy of Science and the National Geographic Society have teamed together to create and market the iNaturalist app.
For gardeners, plant lovers, and other outdoor plants enthusiasts, iNaturalist’s plant identification smartphone applications are a great way to share their views of nature projects with their social network.
How this free plant identifier app Works:
Participants keep a log of everything they see and come across. A third-party verifier and image recognition technology are used to confirm the results. It is possible to verify the suggested alternatives if the photo is not clear.
As a result, individuals produce research data by sharing or validating their findings. INaturalist users had made more than 25.6 million observations as of June 2019.
INaturalist includes an extensive FAQ section and an on-the-go Help feature for those who have questions. An enormous collection of observations and species, including plants, insects, animals, butterflies, and other things, maybe accessed using the application. Thanks to this incredible service, there are also ecological initiatives happening in your neighborhood that you may find out about.
LeafSnap Plant Identification
The plant identification app – LeafSnap – was created to make it easy for people to identify trees by taking a picture of the leaf or bark. The app also allows users to share images of leaves, and the app’s algorithm will recognize the tree that the user has taken a picture of. The app also works well with other plants and exact flowers.
LeafSnap performs an excellent job at recognizing tree and plant species and identifying common home plants.
Using this software, you may snap a picture of a specific part of a tree and then choose which part of the tree shows in the picture. Once the image has been analyzed, the app will present you with a few options based on how closely the tree species in the database fit your selections.
Often, it will give you the correct answers, but there is always the potential for mistakes when it comes to recognizing an object in a photograph.
Seek by iNaturalist
Seek by iNaturalist has been downloaded over 1 million times since it was first released. For a good reason, it’s one of the most widely used plant identification applications on the market today. Seek by iNaturalist is one of the most intuitive and user-friendly plant identification apps available. This app is designed to help people identify trees, plants, and other vegetation in their area.
Seek, another program from the same supplier as iNaturalist, is an option to consider as an alternative. Seek essentially provides the iNaturalist app with the specific plant recognition functionality that it lacks.
The plant identification software of iNaturalist outperforms Seek’s, even though iNaturalist is a community app with a broader goal in mind (at least at this time).
For the time being, Seek does not appear to be the best tool for identifying trees based on their bark. Many of the photographs I tried to use the program on included bark textures that it couldn’t remember.
Google Lens
Android phones running this operating system already have Google Lens installed by the company’s developers. Fortunately, an iPhone version of this software is also accessible.
When I didn’t know the name of an unknown plant, I found Google Lens to be a helpful tool, and I’ve used it multiple times.
Google Lens can identify a wide range of things in a photograph because of its extensive collection of photos and high-performance artificial intelligence technology.
One of the most remarkable things about this software is that it is constantly being updated and enhanced.
For example, because Google Lens is not a plant recognition software, it does not provide in-app facts about the tree or plant you’re trying to identify directly. So, click on the search results and read information from numerous websites to accomplish that goal” (like when using Google Images).
Download Android
PlantSnap plant identification
The PlantSnap app is a free plant identifier that can identify over 600,000 plants. It can be used to identify trees, flowers, and other plants. The app uses your phone’s camera to take a picture of the plant and then uses that picture to identify the plant.
The app also has an amazing feature that allows you to take a leaf picture and get information about the leaf. PlantSnap can recognize a wide range of plants in a flash, thanks to its massive plant database and artificial intelligence.
Use your phone’s camera or a snapshot from your gallery to rapidly identify a wide range of flowers, trees, houseplants, herbs, succulents, mushrooms, and more by simply downloading the app.
With the help of trees.org and the PlantSnap app, users may plant new trees when they upload their images. According to the app’s Google Play page, PlantSnap has already produced more than 10,000 trees worldwide.
The premium edition is an excellent choice if you enjoy spending time outside and discovering new flora because it’s so reasonably priced (even the lifetime version).
Unfortunately, there is a fee associated with using this software. There is a free version as well as a premium version of it accessible. At this point, the free edition allows you to take 25 daily photos and includes advertisements (I think you can view ads to keep snapping if you reach that limit). The software will be more than sufficient if you only use it occasionally to look up the names of new plants.
PictureThis – Plant Identifier
The internet is full of great resources, but there are times when you don’t have the time to search for the perfect help. If you are looking for a quick and easy way to identify trees, you should check out the PictureThis – Plant Identifier app. It is a free application that allows you to identify trees with just a few taps of your finger.
According to the app’s description, there are more than 10,000 species of plants that can be identified with 98 percent accuracy. The app’s creators hope to foster a vibrant plant-loving community and educate a wider audience about plants.
Unfortunately, this software isn’t completely free of charge. Ads and a limited amount of free shots are included with the free membership (IDs). To get additional free IDs, you may view ads, invite friends, share, use the app every day, or play a game called “feeling fortunate,” similar to a spin-to-win game.
Additional plant care instructions and reminders, HD plant backgrounds, and the removal of all adverts are just some of the benefits of premium membership.
Suppose you are looking for an application to identify plants found in the wild. In that case, this app is not the perfect choice, Because it contains a pretty vast database of plants compared to other applications.
On the other hand, if you are a gardener or just someone who requires a mobile app that can assist them in identifying the common plants around their house, then this software is something you should consider as a potential solution.
Flora Incognita
If you are looking for a fun way to identify plants and trees in your garden plants, you should check out the Flora Incognita app. Plants may be identified using the same approach as a normal plant identifier using the app. It allows you to quickly identify plants and trees using the same process that botanists and nursery workers use. The app has an extensive and massive database of plants and trees, and you can use it to identify any plant or tree you encounter.
With Flora Incognita, you’ll be able to quickly and reliably identify the plants native to Central Europe by utilizing just photographs captured with your cell phone.
If you want to identify the plants in your garden or elsewhere around the house, this app might not be the best choice.
It is made abundantly clear in the description of the software that Flora Incognita was explicitly developed to identify wild plants and not for the numerous processes involved in the breeding and crossing of garden and houseplants.
Scientists from the Technical University of Ilmenau and the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena collaborated to produce TheFlora Incognita. The program is free to use, has an instructional function, and does not include advertisements.
NatureID- Plant Identification
NatureID is a free plant identifier app that helps identify plants by taking pictures and submitting them to the NatureID database. The app has a premium feature that allows users to submit observations of plants, including location, time, and weather conditions.
This information is used to help improve the accuracy of plant identification. The NatureID app also includes a tree identification guide that helps users identify trees by their leaves and bark.
When you snap a photo of a diseased plant, NatureID can detect the problem, and it will even give you advice on how to treat the condition of plant diseases and bring your plant health back .
Both written and video instructions on properly caring for plants may be found on the NatureID website. It even has a social component by providing a Feed of plants that other NatureID users have recognized as belonging to a specific species.
This software may surprise you with its yearly pricing. Still, it is one of the most highly ranked plant identification and plant care applications available on the App Store. Numerous consumers have confirmed the fact that it is the superior choice among those that are offered.
Tree ID – British trees
Tree ID – British trees Plant Identification is an app that provides information about British trees. It helps you identify trees by offering pictures of various trees and their leaves, fruits, and flowers. Both Android and iOS smartphones may use this app.
The Forest Trust, the largest woodland conservation organization in the UK, is the organization behind the development of the Tree ID app. This program can also identify common trees not native to the UK, and it can do so regardless of the season.
It is helpful software for everyone interested in learning more about the many different trees they encounter daily.
With Tree ID, all you have to do is take a picture of the bark, buds, twigs, leaves, flowers, or even the fruits of an unknown tree, and the software will analyze the picture and present you with magnificent, clear images of that tree.
When searching for native British trees, their accuracy improves significantly. In addition, if you search for a tree, this app will present you with further information that is pertinent to that tree.
It provides you with exciting information on the history, folklore, and usage of various trees. Tree ID can accurately identify trees regardless of the season, whether it is summer, spring, autumn, or winter, even when all of the tree’s leaves have fallen off (dried up).
GardenAnswers Plant Identifier
The GardenAnswers Plant Identifier App is a unique app that will help you identify trees in your garden. With this app, you will be able to take a photo of a tree, and then you will be able to identify the tree from the images instantly. This app has several additional features, which include:
- The ability to take a photo of a tree
- The ability to instantly identify the tree
- Ability to save the identified tree to the huge database
This software for identifying trees is compatible with nearly all Android devices, as long as they run Android version 5.0 or a later version.
It is a professional program, but it is free, and it gives anybody the ability to instantly learn helpful information about the different trees in their immediate environment.
Garden Answers can rapidly identify over 20,000 different plants and trees, and it can also offer you extensive information on the tree that has been located.
As is the case with other applications of its kind, all that is required of you is to take a picture of the tree and upload it through the app; from there, gardeners and other specialists in horticulture will determine its identity.
This software also includes support for a dedicated section in which users may discover answers to over 200,000 frequently asked questions about plants and trees. It detects in seconds and has a clean user interface that makes it very simple to put into use.
Conclusion
Gardeners of all skill levels can benefit significantly from the identification of plants apps. Even if there are a lot of different applications available, the one you choose to use will ultimately be determined by your preferences.
Artificial intelligence or a group of knowledgeable individuals? Are you prepared to pay or not? Can’t take those pesky commercials? Do you prefer to spend your time gardening for fun or engaging in more agricultural severe and landscaping activities? If you have ever used an app to identify plants, please tell us which one your favorite plant identification app is.
Have you ever used a free plant identifier app to identify plants before? How did you find that? What about smartphone apps for gardening? In what ways have they influenced the way you tend your garden?
