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Our recent column introduced garden-related use of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), which organizes new content based on existing information, rather than analyzing or predicting existing data. This category of AI can generate text, images, music or video, supporting a range of garden-related projects.
That column focused on skills for prompting GenAI to address a specific interest. For example, a gardener could use this skill, called prompt engineering, to describe a garden landscape plan in words, and to refine the plan based on the gardener’s vision, perhaps with input from a garden designer.
Another category of AI includes tools that gardeners can use to identify plants and plant diseases, and other specific gardening interests. This column features plant identification tools. In a future column we’ll dig (a little) into AI tools to identify plant diseases, garden pests and weeds; monitor climate and soil; and optimize plant care. Additionally, we could explore ways gardeners can use AI to include images in a landscape plan.
AI tools for plant identification
Because flowering plants (Angiosperms) include 13,000 genera and 300,000 species, encountering an unfamiliar plant is a common experience. Plant identification could be a gardener’s most frequent use of AI tools.
Today’s image gallery includes images of relatively unfamiliar plants. We invite readers to identify these plants based on experience or research without an AI plant ID tool. We identify the plants at the end of this column (no peeking!).
We begin with three highly rated tools, all available on the Apple iPhone, Android and online. These tools are convenient for uses while in the field.
Pl@ntNet (plantnet.org). This is a crowd-sourced database where users contribute plant images to improve plant identification accuracy. Its database is organized by geographic areas. To search for a plant, switch to the appropriate area (or enter “world flora”) and enter your plant’s photo. It accurately identified my photo of a pregnant onion (Albuca bracteata), an African native.
PictureThis (picturethisai.com). This tool responds to a photo by using deep learning and a huge database for plant identification and provides plant care tips, watering schedules and sunlight needs. When I subscribed to this tool for $3.33 per month, it worked well.
Google Lens (on Google, click on the “Search by Image” icon). This use of the Google website is free, easy and very quick. I uploaded a snapshot of the leaves and stems of an unfamiliar plant in my garden, and Google Lens immediately identified it accurately as dragon arum (Dracunculus vulgaris).
Any AI information should be verified through another source. When you receive a plant identification, enter the botanical name into the internet for verification.
More plant ID tools
PlantAI. Available on a cellphone. Try free for seven days, then $29.99 per year. This tool identified my photo of a natal lily (Clivia miniata).
PlantSnap. This free app identified my photo of a sacred flower of the Andes (Cantua buxifolia) as a trumpet vine (Campsis radicans). I will give it another chance.
Plant Parent. A free seven-day trial of this tool identified my plant photo as palmer’s sedum (Sedum palmeri) and provided cultivation information.
PlantIn. A three-day free trial of this app correctly identified my photo of a natal lily (Clivia miniata)
PlantID. This app, using a free three-day trial, identified my photo of an agave ‘blue glow’ that has a flower stalk, as an American agave, American aloe, century plant, etc. The agave genus has many species, so this ID was not helpful.
There are several tools that specialize in identifying mushrooms. Try Mushroom Identificator, Shroomify, Forest Mushroom Identification or Mushrooms LITE.
Plant identification databases
Plant ID tools might use these databases or other sources of information.
Plants of the World Online (plantsoftheworldonline.org). The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew manages this global plant database with detailed species data. The Plant List (theplantlist.org) has been incorporated into POWO.
Global Biodiversity Information Facility (gbif.org). This is an open-access biodiversity database with records of plant and animal species from around the world.
USDA Plants Database (plants.usda.gov). This a comprehensive plant species database managed (currently) by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and focused on North America.
This week in the garden
This column is another invitation for readers to explore the information age of gardening. Identifying plants can link to details on the plant and its cultivation, change a mystery to knowledge or just satisfy your curiosity. Your project for this week is to identify unfamiliar plants that you see in your garden or elsewhere.
If you use AI to identify a plant, write to us about your experience for sharing with other adventurous gardeners.
Revealed names of unidentified plants
a. Maguey of the Mist (Agave polyacantha). A friend gave me this Mexican native plant, which I have found to be an uncommonly polycarpic agave, but the National Gardening Association calls it monocarpic. Search for its name at the NGA (garden.org).
b. Lilac hibiscus (Alyogyne huegelii ‘Santa Cruz’). I acquired this plant, an Australian native, at the UCSC Arboretum. For details, search for its name at San Marcos Growers (smgrowers.com).
c. Pink and white Wagner’s sage (Salvia wagneriana). Visit Flowers by the Sea (fbts.com/salvia-wagneriana-white-bracts.html) for info on this South American native.
d. Lemonade berry (Rhus integrifolia). For details on this California native, search for its name at CNPS’s Calscape (calscape.org).
e. Firecracker plant (Russelia equisetiformis). Search for this Mexican native plant’s name on Wikipedia.
Enjoy your garden!
Tom Karwin is a past president of Friends of the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum and the Monterey Bay Iris Society, a past president and lifetime member of the Monterey Bay Area Cactus and Succulent Society and a Lifetime UC Master Gardener (certified 1999-2009). He is now a board member of the Santa Cruz Hostel Society and active with the Pacific Horticultural Society. To view daily photos from his garden, facebook.com/ongardeningcom-566511763375123. For garden coaching info and an archive of previous On Gardening columns, visit ongardening.com.