How to Identify a Plant: A Practical Guide

To identify a plant, read it feature by feature: the shape of the leaves and how they sit on the stem, any flowers, fruit or seed pods, the stems and bark, the size and shape it grows in, and the spot it is growing in. Those few details name most garden plants between them. A plant identifier app does the same reading from a photo in seconds, so most people start there and then use the plant in front of them to check the answer.

What to look at on the plant

Plant names come from a short list of features. Run through them before you type anything into an app, because noticing them is what lets you tell a good answer from a near miss.

• The leaves. Their shape, whether the edges are smooth or toothed, and whether they sit opposite each other on the stem or alternate along it.
• Flowers or fruit, if there are any. The colour, how many petals, whether they come singly or in clusters, and the time of year they turned up.
• The stems and bark. Woody or soft, smooth or peeling, and whether there are thorns, hairs or a milky sap where something has been broken off.
• The size and the shape it grows in. Ground cover, shrub, climber or tree, how tall it has got and how wide it has spread.
• Where it is growing. In a pot or in the ground, sun or shade, wet or dry, and whether somebody planted it or it arrived on its own.
• What it smells like. Crush a leaf between your fingers. A smell separates a lot of plants that look much the same.

A simple order to work through

Working in the same order every time saves you from circling the same three guesses. This is the order a nursery worker tends to use when somebody walks in holding a cutting.

1. Decide what kind of plant it is: a grass, a ground cover, a soft stemmed plant, a shrub, a climber or a tree.
2. Look at a leaf closely, then look at how the leaves are arranged along the stem.
3. Look for flowers, buds, fruit or seed pods, and note the month.
4. Check the stem or trunk for thorns, hairs, sap or peeling bark.
5. Note the conditions it is growing in and how big it has got.
6. Photograph all of that, then compare the likely answer against each feature you wrote down.

Using a plant identifier app

A plant id app reads a photo and matches it against reference images of known plants. It is quick, and it is at its best when you give it something clear to work with and treat the answer as a strong lead rather than the last word. Pocket Gardener works this way: you upload one or more photos, add any notes about what you are looking at, and read the likely match with its confidence and reference images beside it. It runs in a web browser on a phone or a computer, so there is nothing to install.

What makes a photo easy to read

• Get in close enough that a leaf fills a good part of the frame, then take one more from a step back showing the whole plant.
• Shoot in daylight with the sun behind you rather than behind the plant, and skip the flash.
• Photograph both sides of a leaf where you can, and the point where the leaf joins the stem.
• Include flowers, fruit or seed pods if the plant has any, because they narrow things down quickly.
• Hold still until the picture is sharp. A blurry photo leaves the match guessing.
• A picture already on your phone is fine, so a plant you saw last week can still be identified.

What to check in the result

Any identify plant app will give you a name. The useful part is what comes with it. Look for a confidence signal so you know when to trust the answer, the other likely candidates when the match is less certain, and reference images you can hold up against the real plant. Then check the name against the features you noted. If the match has toothed leaves and yours are smooth, it is the wrong plant however confident the app sounds.

Plant identification in Australia

Australia makes this both harder and easier. Harder, because a lot of what grows in our gardens is native, regional, or an introduced plant that behaves differently here. Easier, because there is good public information to check an answer against.

• Each state and territory has a herbarium, and most publish a searchable flora of the plants recorded there.
• Local councils publish weed lists for their own area, which is the fastest way to find out whether the plant you cannot name is one you should remove.
• Botanic gardens, garden clubs and local nurseries will usually look at a photo or a cutting and tell you what it is.
• Plant labels and receipts are worth keeping. The name you paid for beats any guess made later.

When you search a name, add the state or the region. Plenty of common names are used for different plants in different parts of the country, so the botanical name is the one worth writing down.

When the plant is hard to name

Some plants will not give themselves up on a first look. Young seedlings, plants out of flower, and anything that has been clipped into a shape all lose the features a name usually hangs on.

• Wait for it to flower and look again. A month of patience beats an hour of searching.
• Look at the plants around it. Gardens are planted in batches, and the neighbours are often a clue.
• Try a second photo from a different angle or in different light. A match that was unsure often firms up.
• Treat anything you cannot name as unknown until you can. Do not eat it, and wear gloves if you are pulling it out.

A name is not the goal. The point of naming a plant is knowing what it needs, how big it gets and whether it belongs where it is standing.

What to do once you have the name

Write it down somewhere you will find it again, with the date and the spot in the garden. From there you can look up how much water and sun it wants, how big it grows, whether it is a weed in your area, and what tends to go wrong with it. In Pocket Gardener you can save the plant to My Garden or a wishlist and get care guidance shaped by where you live, so the name turns into something you can act on.