Tree identification is a fun way of learning more about the trees around you. But the process can also be frustrating and time-consuming because of the various plant species around you.
Even if you have a field guide, it can be a pain to carry it around, and it is not even user-friendly, especially if you are an amateur botanist. Luckily, you can now use the best tree identification apps to learn more about the plants around you.
You can use technology to identify any tree and learn more about it. Most apps are convenient because you only need to use your phone camera or snap the leaf to recognize the tree.
Knowing which trees are growing around you will tell you more about the climate, soil, and other environmental conditions. Furthermore, you will know whether the tree is ideal for timber, medicine, food, paper, or other useful products.
The 10 best tree identification apps to download
Here are ten of the best tree identification apps you can download for iOS or Android devices.
1. Forest Tree Identification
Forest Tree Identification by Kesifler Dunyasi Ltd is an iOS and Android application that allows you to identify trees around you. You can use it to identify trees from their leaves, buds, or twigs.
To use the application, you must have a smartphone camera to take quality images of the tree in question.
The app can also filter trees by their leaf morphology. This will help you to see similarities between trees. An advantage of using the app is it contains hundreds of trees. You can use the list to see all trees simultaneously, compare, and learn more about them.
Kids and students can download the application to distinguish the features of trees and understand how tree properties change based on climates and regions.
2. Google Lens
Google Lens is one of the best tree bark identification apps. It is an application with a set of vision-based computing capabilities that can understand what you are looking at and what information you need.
The app can help you identify plants and animals around you regardless of your location.
Google Lens is an easy application to use. You will only have to take a picture of the plant and tap the lens button at the bottom of your screen to identify it.
The app will tell you more about the tree within seconds. Google Lens works well on Android devices.
3. LeafSnap
LeafSnap is one of the best tree identification apps for Android and iOS devices. The application can recognize up to 90% of all known species of trees. You can use it to identify thousands of trees, fruits, and flowers around you.
The app gives instant access to a plant database containing more information about tree species. The database keeps updating constantly.
LeafSnap can identify a tree by its leaves or bark. Once you snap a photo and upload it, you will get information about the tree, including its common and scientific names.
Its plant database contains over 20,000 high-quality images taken on pressed leaves. That ensures it is easy for you to compare the tree or determine whether you are getting the correct information for that particular tree.
4. NatureID
NatureID is an Android and iOS app that can identify plants, flowers, trees, and leaves. The app can recognize over 10,000 plants with up to 95% accuracy.
You only have to snap a leaf, tree, or flower to get more information about it. Instead of identifying a tree by its physical characteristics, you can use it to learn more about a plant species by entering its name.
The app will produce a vivid interface to make comparing the trees around you easier. After getting information about the tree, you will also learn how to take care of it. That includes how much water, light, and fertilizer it needs to stay healthy.
NatureID has a feature called plant disease identifier. The feature helps you to diagnose a tree and get a detailed description of the disease affecting it.
5. PictureThis
PictureThis is an advanced mobile application for identifying plants, flowers, and trees. It uses artificial intelligence to instantly identify a tree with an accuracy of up to 98%.
Unlike other applications, PictureThis can recognize over one million plant species using a phone camera.
Furthermore, you can use the app to diagnose plant problems automatically and get suggestions on how to treat the issues. The application also has many features for users.
It allows you to get advice from botanists in one-on-one conversations. You can keep notes of what you have learned, get reminders, and record the growth of your trees.
Its interface is easy to use, which allows you to take high-quality photos for better identification.
6. Plant Lens
Plant Lens is an app that can ID trees by bark and gives you more information about them. The application can identify over 60,000 plant species with an accuracy of 92%.
It has many features useful for different users, including students, gardeners, and botanists. For example, you can use it to keep track of all the trees in your collection.
It stores your photo in a database and creates a personal plant map for you. You can also explore the plant work using an identifier and mobile encyclopedia.
Plant Lens requires you to provide more visual information to accurately describe the tree.
7. PlantNet
PlantNet is an app for identifying trees by simply photographing them with your smartphone.
The application allows you to identify trees and better understand all kinds of trees. It can also recognize flowering plants, conifers, vines, grasses, cacti, and even wild salads.
Currently, PlantNet can recognize up to 20,000 species. The app also has many features that make it easy to use. For example, you can filter identified trees by genus or family.
It has a database for selecting your favorite floras and accessing them whenever you need to get more information.
You can also map your observations anytime you identify a tree in a specific area.
8. PlantSnap
PlantSnap is a free plant identifier application. It allows you to identify over 600,000 types of plants, including succulents, trees, flowers, mushrooms, cacti, and more.
The app can recognize a plant by image. All you have to do is to take a picture of it using the app. The application will use its vast database to find the information you seek.
When you provide a photo of a tree, you will get information about the taxonomy of the tree and a complete description. The app also tells you how to grow the tree and take care of it.
If you do not have a photo, you can know more about the tree by searching its name from the app. Also, you can create your plant collection and share your findings with more than 50 million nature lovers in over 200 countries.
9. Tree ID
Tree ID is an interactive British tree identification app. The application allows you to identify native and common non-native trees found in the United Kingdom.
Tree ID is the best app to use for identifying a tree by the bark. You can also use twigs, leaves, buds, fruits, or flowers to get more information about a tree you have seen.
The application also has an A-Z guide that allows you to identify a tree by name. You will discover more about each species with facts, folklore, history, and uses.
Tree ID does not require access to the internet to use it. It has lots of detailed images and illustrations for accurate identification. After identifying a tree, you can add it to your favorites.
10. Virginia Tech Tree ID
Virginia Tech Tree ID or vTree is a mobile application that contains fact sheets for over 1,000 woody plants from across North America.
It gives you an in-depth description, a range map, and thousands of color images of flowers, twigs, barks, leaves, fruits, and forms of trees. You can use it to narrow the species list for any location in North America.
The app also allows you to search for species by keyword or identify a tree by answering a series of questions. After your answers, the application will display a picture of a tree you are looking for and a detailed description.
Found your ideal tree identification app?
The best tree identification apps are Google Lens, LeafSnap, PictureThis, PlantNet, PlantSnap, and Tree ID. You can use them to identify trees from their leaves, flowers, buds, or twigs.
Some of the applications will give you a description of every tree and learn more about it. Once you know the tree, it will help you determine whether it is ideal for timber, food, paper, or medicine.
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IW’s Chief Editor and a lover of green spaces.