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https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/article/2024/jul/24/plant-identifcation-apps>
"Eighteen months ago, I adopted a dog. Now I’m out on the streets of Brooklyn
with my hound mix for at least an hour a day, strolling and wrestling discarded
chicken bones from her jaws. You notice a lot when you visit the same few
blocks over and over: which avenues are the quietest, or when the rusty
scaffolding around a nearby building vanishes overnight.
Most of all, I love to admire neighborhood greenery. I’m an adoring fan of the
tulips, peonies and dogwood flowers that burst forth in the spring. Yet I
quickly realized how limited my plant vocabulary was. Yes, I knew that was a
silver birch, because of its papery bark. But what was that taller tree, glossy
and looming, or that pale shrub with tiny, ornate leaves? I grew up in
Australia, where the vegetation is pretty different from that of the US
north-east, and I really hadn’t made an effort to learn about the locals. It
felt disrespectful, to say the least.
Googling phrases like “common trees in New York City” and “difference between
basswood and linden” (something of a trick question, as it happens), I found
what is now one of my favorite things on the internet: the New York City tree
map. The map contains information about every tree managed by the NYC parks
department (there are 875,428). All you have to do is type in your location,
and voilà: now you know that’s a London plane tree, one of the many protecting
you from the summer sun.
Still, the map had limitations. For example, it couldn’t tell me what that
orange wildflower bursting across my neighbor’s fence was since it wasn’t a
tree, obviously, or on public land.
Enter plant identification apps. Friends recommended PictureThis ($39.99 a
year), which they found user-friendly and accurate; it also tells you when to
water and how to care for plants, a nice bonus for the green-thumbed. But I
started with PlantNet, a free tool described on its website as a “citizen
science platform that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to facilitate the
identification and inventory of plant species”. It was easy to use: just take a
photo of unknown flora and let the technology do its work.
Soon I was pointing and tapping at Japanese pagoda trees, sawtooth oaks and
Callery pears. It was helpful in my own home too. That houseplant I’d been
calling “big guy” for five years? Turns out, I’m the proud owner of a tree
philodendron."
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
