Identify a plant from a photo

Take a clear photo of the plant’s leaves, flowers, or fruit. We’ll tell you what species it is in seconds, plus link straight to the care guide. Powered by PlantNet.

Which part of the plant? Let PlantNet decide Flower Leaf Fruit / seed pod Bark Whole plant

Photo (JPG/PNG/WebP, <5MB) 📷 Drop a photo or click to choose JPG, PNG, WebP — under 5MB

Identify this plant

How it works

This page sends your photo to PlantNet, a botanical identification service built by French research institutions and used by tens of thousands of botanists, ecologists, and gardeners worldwide. PlantNet returns the top 5 species matches with confidence scores. We then cross-reference those species names against our own catalog of 800+ outdoor plant care guides — if we have a care guide for the species, you get a direct link.

What it’s good at

• Common ornamental plants in temperate climates (North America, Europe, parts of Asia)
• Crops with distinctive leaves or flowers (tomato, squash, eggplant, etc.)
• Wildflowers with photogenic blooms (coneflowers, asters, milkweed, hollyhocks)
• Trees identified by leaf shape or bark texture
• Houseplants commonly grown outdoors in warmer zones

What it struggles with

• Cultivars: it can tell you it’s a hydrangea but usually can’t pick between 'Annabelle' and 'Limelight'
• Highly variable groups like roses, dahlias, and irises (hundreds of cultivars within one species)
• Young seedlings before they show distinctive features
• Diseased or damaged plants that have lost their normal appearance
• Plants photographed in low light, motion blur, or with the focal point off-center

Tips for the best results

1. Get close. Fill at least half the frame with one identifying feature — a single flower, a single leaf, a fruit cluster. Whole-plant shots have too much background noise.
2. Natural light. Bright shade works better than direct sun (which blows out colors) or deep shade (which loses detail).
3. Hold the phone parallel to the leaf or flower for an undistorted view.
4. Try multiple angles if the first result is wrong. Upload a flower photo, then try again with a leaf photo. Cross-reference the two top results.
5. Use the “Which part?” selector — PlantNet’s confidence improves when you tell it whether you’re showing a leaf, flower, or fruit.

Privacy

Photos you upload are sent directly to PlantNet for identification. We don’t store your photos on this site — they pass through our server and are immediately forwarded. PlantNet’s own privacy policy covers what happens to the photo on their end. We don’t log who uploaded what.

Limits

This tool uses PlantNet’s free API tier (500 identifications per day across all visitors combined). If the tool returns a rate-limit error, it’s because the daily cap was reached — come back the next day. For unlimited use, sign up for a free PlantNet account at my.plantnet.org and use their mobile app directly.

Identification not matching what you grow? Send a photo and a short description to thomas@outdoorplantcare.com — I'll look at it personally and tell you what I think.