One of the great joys of hiking is discovering the incredible variety of plants that grow along the trail. A tiny alpine flower, an unusual fern, an ancient oak, or a colorful mushroom can easily become just as memorable as reaching the summit itself.
In fact, this curiosity isn't anything new. Long before hiking became a recreational activity, many of the people walking through forests and climbing mountains were scientists. During the 18th and 19th centuries, botanists, geologists and naturalists regularly ventured into remote areas to discover and document species that had never been formally described. You could even argue that some of the very first recreational hikers were, in fact, botanists exploring the natural world.
Today, we don't need to carry heavy field guides or spend years studying botany. Thanks to smartphone technology, anyone can identify thousands of plant species in just a few seconds.
Among the many plant identification apps available today, Pl@ntNet (PlantNet) stands out as my first recommendation for hikers. It's completely free, with no adds, available on Android, iPhone (iOS) and also on the web.
Pl@ntNet is one of the world's largest citizen science projects dedicated to plant biodiversity. The platform has millions of contributors across more than 200 countries who collectively help build an enormous database of plant observations. Artificial intelligence performs the initial identification, while the community helps verify observations and improve the system over time.
That means every time you identify a wildflower during your hike, you have the opportunity to contribute to real scientific research.
Your observations can help scientists:
This is really a nice idea. By using Pl@ntNet you're not just satisfying your own curiosity - you can also help improve our understanding of the natural world.
Unlike many "point and shoot" identification apps, Pl@ntNet encourages users to take useful photographs. This can at times become a bit frustrating if the app won't accept your photos no matter how much you try, but it's for a good reason.
The developers explain that successful identification depends heavily on image quality. Rather than photographing an entire plant from several meters away, you're encouraged to capture the parts that botanists actually use for identification: flowers, leaves, bark, fruits or seeds, the overall shape of the plant.
The better your photos, the better the identification - and the more useful your observation becomes for the scientific community.
For hikers, this quickly becomes second nature. After a few trips you'll find yourself automatically taking a close-up of a flower and another photo showing the entire plant before continuing along the trail.
One particularly interesting aspect of Pl@ntNet is its cooperative learning model.
When registered users upload observations, other knowledgeable users can confirm or correct the proposed identification. Only observations that reach a sufficient confidence level become part of the public database used to train future versions of the AI.
This creates a virtuous cycle:
It's a nice example of artificial intelligence and human expertise working together.
Connectivity is one of the biggest concerns for hikers.
Many mountain trails have little or no mobile coverage, so relying entirely on an online service isn't always practical.
Fortunately, there are several ways to use Pl@ntNet when you're offline.
The simplest approach is to photograph interesting plants during your hike and identify them later once you're back in an area with mobile data or Wi-Fi. Since the app identifies plants from photographs, you don't actually need an internet connection at the moment you discover the plant.
More recently, Pl@ntNet also introduced an optional offline identification mode. After downloading an identification model to your phone in advance, the app can perform plant recognition without any network connection. The developers note that this offline model is intentionally compressed, so it is slightly less accurate than the full cloud-based engine and doesn't include community-powered features until you're online again. The size of this model is currently around 600MB.
For many hikers, the best strategy is therefore:
The following video demonstrates how simple it is to identify a plant using Pl@ntNet.
If you're a hiker who often wonders "What flower is this?" or "I've never seen this tree before," Pl@ntNet is probably the best place to start.
It isn't just another AI app - it represents a remarkable collaboration between scientists and millions of nature enthusiasts around the world. Every hike becomes an opportunity not only to learn something new, but also to contribute, however modestly, to documenting and protecting the planet's biodiversity.
For anyone who enjoys exploring nature, that's a pretty compelling reason to keep it installed before the next adventure.
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