If you’ve ever received a beautiful bouquet of flowers and wanted to know the name of each one within, well, now there’s an app for that! Twenty years ago, you would have had to consult a book of flowers to find what you were looking for. Ten years ago you would have to go to your computer and search the internet for the flowers you wanted to know about. Today, you just need your phone to access a database of thousands of flowers or point and click to upload a picture of a flower and get an immediate response.

Of course, you can also contact the best local florist in the Cincinnati area, Adrian Durban, to ask their flower experts, but in the meantime, here are some helpful apps that will make identifying plants and flowers a snap.

Flower and Plant Identification Apps

What’s That Flower?

This flower identification app starts with about the flower you want to identify. First, you select the color, the habitat, and then the number of petals it has. Based on your answers, the app presents a multitude of flower varieties which fall into that category. It’s fun to peruse through all the flowers. Plus, when you select a particular flower, you can learn more about it, including its taxonomy.

FlowerChecker

This identification app is service-based where you upload a picture of an unknown plant or flower (or lichen, moss, and even fungi), and a team of real botanists will reply. The response may take several minutes or several hours, but the developers claim to be able to identify over 90% of plants. Each correct identification costs .99 cents, but there is no charge if they are unable to provide an identification.

PictureThis

This app uses artificial intelligence to identify plants and flowers and is very easy to use. Just upload a photo of the plant you want to be identified, or take a picture, and then just wait for it to do its magic. The developers claim the advanced AI of this app has identified over 27 million plants with 99% accuracy. In addition to identification, PictureThis also provides plant care tips, diagnoses for sick plants, pest control for plants, and more. This app is a subscription-based app but offers a 7-day free trial period.

PlantNet

Similar to PictureThis, you upload or take a picture of a plant or flower and visual recognition software will provide potential matches. Their database includes flowering plants, grasses, trees, conifers, vines, cacti, and more. PlantNet is also a citizen science project in that all the plant photos are collected and analyzed by botanists around the world to better understand plant biodiversity. This is a free app and is very well-reviewed.

Honorable Mentions

There are multiple plant and flower identification apps available, and you may want to download more than one. Here are a few notable others:

• Plantix – popular with gardeners and farmers, this app identifies plants and plant diseases.
• Smart Plant Home – submit a photo of a plant to an expert team who will not only identify it but also tell you how to care for it.
• LeafSnap – identify tree species from photographs of their leaves.

And for all the wildflower lovers out there, there are wildflower ID apps available for almost every region and state of the U.S. Use this list of wildflower apps to find one in your area.