In the fifth of Inside Ecology’s App Roundup series, we focus on wild flower identification…
Wild Flower Id Automatic Recognition British Isles By Mullen & Pohland GbR
The app’s features include:
- Automatic photo recognition – take a picture of the plant and find out what plant you are looking at.
- Works completely offline – no internet connection needed.
- 800 images are provided covering the full plant, flower and leaf.
- You can browse through 318 flower species.
- Keep a log of your flower sightings.
- Anatomical, ecological and taxonomic information.
Wild Flower Id can be used to keep a log of your flower sightings, making it easy to build a record of all the flowers you’ve seen. The app has been created by professional published ecologists, and uses a propriety image library created with the specific aim of aiding wild flower identification with images of the flower, leaf, stem and plant.
The field guide uses a modern taxonomic keying system designed specifically for use on mobile devices.
Compatible with Android, iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.
What’s that flower? By Adrian Benko
Choose the flower’s colour, habitat and number of petals and your options are narrowed from more than 600 to a couple of dozens. Then scroll the list and choose the right one.
Internet connection is required to run this application.
If you want to identify flowers at places without internet or search flowers by name or taxonomy, consider extended (+) version of the application.
Compatible with Android.
Naturetale wild flower app By Naturetale Limited
Naturetale enables users to identify wild flowers, berries and soft fruit – and then provides information about them, what they can tell you about the countryside, how they have historically been used by humans, literary references and more. Up to fifteen different types of information can be provided.
Naturetale has been developed for people who are interested to know more about plants and the countryside, but do not want to be plant spotting experts. As with any identification and information source it requires users to look closely at the habitat, colour, shape, and (sometimes) height or leaves of flowers and berries. Flowers and berries can vary in their appearance and do not always look as they are supposed to.
Naturetale covers over 250 of the more widespread, distinct and interesting flowers and berries that are likely to be seen on walks in the UK countryside. Between them these groups covers all but the rarest flowering wild plants and berries. Naturetale covers species that are considered by biologists to be either native to the British Isles, or to have become naturalised over time. It does not cover species that botanists consider to be either escapes from domestic gardens or agricultural / horticultural use.
For simplicity it combines groups of plants that are very similar, but provides references to more detailed identification guides.
Compatible with Android.
Flowers of Britain By NatureBritain
Over 300 native and naturalized species are covered.
Flowers are listed alphabetically and by family. Each flower is presented with a description, botanical data, key identification points, cross-references to similar species, and one or more images of the species.
There are 3 photographic keys to petals, flowering season, and habitat to help you to identify wild flowers in the field, and you can test and improve your knowledge with the interactive quiz!
NatureBritain pledges a proportion of app revenues to supporting woodland conservation, education and research projects in the UK.
Compatible with Android.
What has your experience been of using these apps in the field? Do you use any other apps not listed above? Let us know in the comments box.
