Identification / start with a photograph

What caught your eye?

Bring a little of your next discovery into focus. Practise adding a photograph, or search an external botanical collection.

01 / Photograph

Take a closer look

Demonstration interface: your image stays on your device. This page does not recognise plants.

Choose a plant image

Choose a clear JPG, PNG or WebP photograph.

Selecting a file shows its name. No upload or image analysis takes place.

Photograph selected. You can now open the fixed teaching example.

Example ready to explore

Your photograph was not analysed or uploaded. The nutmeg example below is a fixed teaching record, unrelated to your selected image.

View example record Choose another photograph

Illustrative result / not image recognition

Meet the nutmeg tree.

Fixed example
Yellow Myristica fragrans fruit on a leafy branch
Ramesh NG · CC-BY-SA · resized; display crop.

Myristica fragrans

Nutmeg · Pokok pala

Family
Myristicaceae
Native origin
Maluku, Indonesia
Growing environment
Tropical conditions; well-drained, acidic loamy soil.
Care context
Moderate water; full sun or semi-shade.

Botanical source: NParks .

View species

A beginner’s field companion

Good observations leave room for uncertainty.

You do not need to name every plant before you start exploring. Begin with a clear observation and follow the classification trail at your own pace. This guide deliberately keeps its collection small: every family connects to two genera, and every genus connects to two species. Those counts describe this website’s selection, not the total diversity of the families.

Use the photographs as reference material. A close-up may show a fruit, a leaf, or a preserved herbarium specimen; the caption tells you who made the image. The original botanical source appears beside the description so you can examine the evidence and read beyond our summary. Regional ranges describe published distributions, not the location where a reference photograph was taken.

Build a useful observation

  1. Take a wider photograph showing the plant’s overall form.
  2. Add close views of leaves and any visible flowers or fruits.
  3. Write the date, general location and what you actually observed.

Three words to know

Family
A classification that groups related genera.
Genus
A classification within a family; the first word of a species name.
Species
The more precise level used in this guide, written with a two-part scientific name.

Naming reference: International Association for Plant Taxonomy . Field workflow is original project guidance.

What this interface does

Assignment 1 identification workflow
Action What happens
Choose a photograph The browser selects a local file; the file is not transmitted.
Identify plant Native validation checks that a file is selected; a fixed example becomes available.
Search by name The query is sent to the public iNaturalist search page.