University of Michigan Creates Plant ID App That Works Without Wi-Fi

Software engineers and botanists at the University of Michigan have solved one of the biggest frustrations of exploring the outdoors:

identifying an unfamiliar plant without Wi-Fi.

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University of Michigan Launches Free Michigan Flora App

As a budding birding enthusiast, I've found myself spending more time exploring Michigan's great outdoors. While there are plenty of apps to help identify new bird and plants, most work best with a reliable internet connection. That's usually not a problem around my neck of the woods in Kalamazoo, but venture into parts of the Upper Peninsula and spotty cell service can make identifying a new discovery much more difficult.

How's a girl supposed to identify the pretty new flower she's just found without cell signal?

That's why this new app from the University of Michigan stands out, it lets users identify Michigan plants even when there's no Wi-Fi or cell service. Of the new app, which is an extension of the Michigan Flora Online website, U-M Herbarium research collection manager and assistant research scientist Brad Ruhfel says:

If you don’t have Wi-Fi or cell signal, you can’t use the flora website...A lot of people who use this resource are out in the field identifying plants in places where you don’t have an internet connection. So, we’re excited for professionals, amateurs, students and everybody in between to be able to use it a little bit more easily, for free.

By bringing Michigan Flora to smartphones, U-M Herbarium researchers hope to make plant identification more accessible to a younger generation of nature lovers, or anyone interested in learning more about the plants around them.

Learn more about the Michigan Flora field guide here.