What plant is this?

Identification runs on Pl@ntNet, a plant-recognition project built by French research institutes with contributions from botanists and the public. Its model compares your photo with a very large library of labelled plant images and returns the species it looks most like. CanopyTwin adds the part we care about: if the best match is a fruit tree in our species database, you get a link to a guide on how to recognise, grow and map it.

How to photograph a plant for a good match

The model can only use what is in the frame. Most poor results come from photos that show a whole bush from across the garden, or a single leaf that is blurred, curled or in shadow. One part of the plant, close up and sharp, beats the whole plant far away.

Leaves

• Pick one whole, healthy, mature leaf. Young leaves and damaged ones look different from the textbook form.
• Lay it flat or hold it against a plain background (a sheet of paper, your palm, the sky), and shoot from directly above so the outline is not distorted.
• Keep the tip, the base and the leaf stalk in the frame. For compound leaves (several leaflets on one stalk), include the whole leaf, not a single leaflet.
• If the underside looks different (hairy, scaly, silvery or a different colour), take a second photo of the underside.

Flowers

• Flowers are usually the most distinctive part of a plant. Fill the frame with one open flower, in focus, from the front.
• A side view that shows the stalk and the green sepals underneath helps with families where the front views look alike.

Fruit

• Photograph the fruit on the plant if you can, so the way it hangs is visible: singly, in clusters, or straight off the trunk (jackfruit, cacao and jaboticaba all fruit on the trunk).
• A cut fruit showing the flesh and seeds can help, but take the whole-fruit photo first.

Bark

• Bark alone is the hardest case. Use it as a second photo, not the only one.
• Shoot straight on, at chest height, in even light. Include an area about the size of a sheet of paper so the pattern (smooth, flaking, ridged, spiny) is clear.

Light matters as much as framing: open shade or an overcast sky is ideal. Harsh midday sun burns out leaf detail, and night photos with flash flatten the texture. Tap the screen on the leaf to focus before you shoot.

What the match score means

Each result shows a species name, its common name where Pl@ntNet has one, and a percentage. That percentage is Pl@ntNet's confidence that this photo shows that species, compared with all the other species it knows. It is not a measured accuracy, and we do not adjust it.

• One result far ahead of the rest usually means the photo shows clear, distinctive features.
• Several results with similar, low scores means the photo does not contain enough information. Try a different part of the plant, closer and sharper.
• Results that are all in the same genus (several Citrus, several Annona) tell you the genus fairly reliably even when the species is uncertain.
• No result at all means the model could not find an identifiable plant in the photo, which is common for very dark, blurred or cluttered shots.

What photo identification cannot do well

It helps to know where any photo identifier, including this one, is weakest, so you know when to trust a result and when to look closer.

• Seedlings. The first leaves a seedling puts out (seed leaves, or cotyledons) look nothing like the adult leaves and are similar across many species. Wait for the first true leaves, or see our weed or seedling guide.
• Cultivars and varieties. A Kent mango and an Alphonso mango are the same species, and their leaves look alike. Expect a species answer such as Mangifera indica, not a variety name.
• Close relatives and look-alikes. Lychee, longan and rambutan share a family and similar compound leaves; sugar apple, custard apple and soursop are hard to separate on leaves alone. A fruit or flower photo usually settles it.
• Grafted trees. A grafted tree has a rootstock of one plant and a top of another. Shoots coming from below the graft line can be a different species from the canopy above it.
• Rare and regional species. Plants with few published photos are matched less reliably. Many tropical fruit trees fall in this group, which is why our species guides list field marks you can check by eye.

Privacy: what happens to your photo

Before uploading, your browser shrinks the photo to at most 1,280 pixels on the long side and re-saves it as a new JPEG, which leaves out the photo's embedded metadata such as GPS location. If your browser cannot read the photo, nothing is uploaded and the page asks for a JPEG or PNG instead. Our server checks the file type and size, sends the image to the Pl@ntNet identification service, and returns the matches to your screen. CanopyTwin does not write your photo or your results to any database or file storage. If you want to keep a record of a plant, that is what a CanopyTwin account is for: it puts the tree on your own map with its photos and history.

Identification guides by plant type

Each guide below has the same identifier at the top, followed by the specific field marks for that kind of plant.

• Fruit tree identifier

  Name a fruit tree from its leaves, bark, flowers or fruit, including trees with no fruit on them.

• Tropical fruit tree identifier

  Mango, durian, avocado, lychee, jackfruit and the rest: the field marks that separate look-alikes.

• Vegetable plant identifier

  Tell tomato from pepper, squash from cucumber and brassicas apart, before anything fruits.

• Tree identification by leaf

  Leaf arrangement, shape, margin and venation: the checklist that narrows a tree down from one leaf.

• Weed or seedling?

  Seed leaves versus true leaves, and how to tell a weed from the crop you sowed.