Article first published on my personal blog at HIVE. (Spanish Original)
Hello, friends. Today I want to share with you an application that has been a great help in my day to day life. As a lover of nature and plant observation, I am always looking for better tools. Being able to correctly identify a plant is extremely important and necessary. With Flora Incognita, it is not only a simple process, but also fun.
With this application, we will not only get the name of the plant we are observing, but also a large amount of data, as well as maps from other users who have also observed the plant.
What is Flora Incognita?
According to its homepage, Flora Incognita is an application developed by a team of scientists from the Technical University of Ilmenau and the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena. Its purpose is to help users identify wild plants in an easy and accessible way: by simply taking a picture with their smartphone. But Flora Incognita is much more than just a plant identification app. It is a gateway to a world of learning and discovery, and a way to contribute to citizen science.
The application shows a simple and friendly interface, where we can create our profile, identify a plant, search the list of registered species or review the observations we have made.
The species list is easy to use. We can search alphabetically, entering the name or restricting the list to a specific country.
Identifying a plant is also a simple process and something I really like is that we can identify plants from photos we have on our mobile. Very useful if we are in a hurry and do not have the time to identify the plant at the time of observation. To identify in real time, we will be asked to take photos of different parts of the plant for greater reliability, but we can only take one. As a personal experience, it is very accurate if you use the flowers of the plant for identification. We can also choose whether to identify a cactus, grass, tree or fern.
Since I discovered Flora Incognita, my walks and strolls in the park have taken on a new dimension. Now, whenever I see a plant I don't recognize, I can identify it instantly. This has greatly enriched my outdoor experiences, turning every walk into an opportunity for learning and discovery. In addition, I have found it an excellent tool for teaching children about nature and fostering their curiosity and appreciation for the natural world.
Something I really value about Flora Incognita is that it is not only a learning tool, but also a way to contribute to science. Every photo I take and every plant I identify helps scientists gather valuable data on biodiversity and the effects of climate change. It's exciting to know that, by using Flora Incognita, I am contributing to our collective understanding of the natural world.
Rating
Without hesitation, I give it a 5/5. It is an easy to use, accurate and educational app. No annoying ads or in-app purchases, something practically impossible nowadays. If you are a nature lover, whether you like hiking, gardening or just curious about what a plant is called, this app is a must have.
If you have made it this far, thank you very much for reading me. I hope you find this post useful. As always, thank you very much for all the support and comments. It will be a pleasure to read them. success and happy observations! See you next time!
