Google Lens

For years I tried using a phone app to identify any plants unknown to me. I tried a couple different apps that purported to use a photo you take of any plant, and ID it from their database They rarely identified the right plant and I stopped relying on them. I never found one that worked or even came close.

But you know what does work? Google Lens. 

I downloaded it to my phone (free app) and started taking snaps of plants and almost without fail, Google Lens accurately identified what I snapped, gave me the botanical name, showed me different named cultivars of it, and -- this being Google -- gave me options on where to shop for that plant.

Once you have the app downloaded on your phone, a little camera shows in the regular Google search bar. That's the option to search any image and get info on it.

Of course Google did not design this for plant lovers or gardeners. It's Google; they want to be in every part of your life. So you can snap a photo of your shoes and it will return the brand you are wearing and where to shop for that brand. (I tried it: Minnetonka moccasins, accurately id'ed the color and style).

You can snap photos of items displayed anywhere and get all the info on what that item is and where to get it or very similar items. You can id dog breeds from a photo. Bird species. Clothing and furniture of course, that's a given, and buying options abound, but anything in the environment is recognizable by Google. Tap the camera in the search bar and you get all the info you'd want on what it is and where to get it. 

But for me the accuracy of plant identification is key. It misses occasionally, but not often. I tried lots of plants I already knew and it was accurate. 

Sometimes it was close but not spot on: Google Lens identified my fragrant tobacco as Nicotiana tabacum, smoking tobacco. But further down the results below the first items returned, it did offer Nicotiana alata as an option, and that's what I have. And it thought my crabapple was a plum, but really, who can tell the difference between crabapples and plums in real life just from the leaves?

After years of being disappointed with database apps that claimed to identify plants from a photo, I'm surprised at how useful Google Lens is. It is, of course, not using plant profiles laboriously entered by an app creator . . . it's using the whole world wide web of images and info from zillions of entries out in the ether. 

Try it. Let me know if you think it works, but beware: this is not our world any more, it's Google's universe and we are just living in it. You already knew that.