With the free Flora Incognita app you can identify plant species using your iPhone camera. To do this, simply take a picture of a plant (or select an existing photo), then Flora Incognita presents the name along with further information – the accuracy is said to be well over 90 percent. The app was developed at the Technical University of Ilmenau and the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena. An update has now been released.
The current version is now 3.13. The developers announced the following about the innovations: “Offline mode: System stability increased with network-independent determination; Species profiles: Detailed botanical information and characteristics expanded; Bug fixes: General performance improved and app stability optimized.”
According to the manufacturer, Flora Incognita recognizes more than 30,000 plant species, supports offline operation and requires at least iOS/iPadOS 13. The multilingual app also runs on Macs with an Apple processor (from macOS Monterey 12) and is regularly provided with updates. The app is supported by, among others, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation.
Flora Incognita: Free iPhone app recognizes more than 30,000 plants.
Image: Ilmenau University of Technology.
From the app description: “What’s blooming there? With the Flora Incognita app, this question is quickly answered. Take a picture of a plant, find out what it’s called and learn everything you want to know from a profile. Highly precise algorithms based on artificial intelligence recognize wild plants even if they aren’t blooming (yet)!
In the Flora Incognita app you can easily view all of your collected plant finds in a watch list. Maps show where you found your plants. This way you will see how your knowledge of wild plants continues to grow.
But Flora Incognita is even more! The app is free and ad-free because it is part of a scientific research project that aims to improve nature conservation. The collected observations serve to answer scientific research questions such as the spread of invasive species or the effects of climate change on biotopes.”
Frequently asked questions about Flora Incognita are answered on this website.
