Identify any outdoor plant from a photo

Identify a plant

How identification works

This tool uses the PlantNet visual recognition API, an open-science project run by a consortium of French research institutions (CIRAD, INRIA, INRAE, IRD). PlantNet has identified hundreds of millions of plant photos and is the standard for botanical-grade plant ID from a photo.

When you upload a photo, the image is sent directly to PlantNet's servers for processing. We do not store your photo on Outdoor Plant Care servers. PlantNet's own retention and privacy policy is at plantnet.org/en/cookies-and-personal-data.

Tips for the best identification:

• Single subject — one leaf, one flower, one fruit. PlantNet's accuracy drops sharply when the photo shows multiple species.
• Sharp focus on the structure (vein pattern on leaves, petal arrangement on flowers).
• Plain background helps. Hold a piece of white paper behind a leaf if you can.
• Daylight, not flash. Indoor flash washes out the color cues PlantNet uses.
• If "auto-detect" returns a low-confidence match, retry with the organ explicitly selected.

Free PlantNet API requests are rate-limited. If you hit the cap, try again in a few minutes or go directly to identify.plantnet.org.

What happens after identification

Each result includes a confidence percentage and the species' scientific name. If we have a full care guide on Outdoor Plant Care for the identified species, the result links directly to it. For species we don't cover yet, the result links to the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew Plants of the World Online profile, which is the authoritative taxonomic reference.

If you suspect the plant is toxic to pets, cross-check the species name against the ASPCA Toxic and Non-Toxic Plants database before letting cats or dogs near it.