Pl@ntNet

Pl@ntNet is a citizen science application that identifies a plant from a single photograph and turns each user's observations into data for biodiversity research. It addresses two problems at once: the difficulty non-experts face when trying to name an unfamiliar plant, and the constant need in ecology for large, geographically broad observation datasets.

The app works by comparing a submitted picture against a large reference collection — the project's site cites tens of thousands of species and well over a billion images across 77 regional and thematic floras — and returning the most likely matches. Users can review matches collaboratively, work in groups, and submit observations that feed open data channels such as GBIF. Pl@ntNet is a trademark jointly owned by the French research organizations CIRAD, INRAE, INRIA and IRD, and it is developed by a consortium of those public research institutes. Beyond the app itself, the project maintains an API for developers, open datasets such as Pl@ntNet 300k and GeoPlant, and an active research program on automated plant identification.