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Introduction to Pl@ntNet

What is Pl@ntNet?

An Open Research Consortium Based in Montpellier

Pl@ntNet is supported by a consortium of four French research institutes: Cirad, Inria, IRD, and INRAE, as well as the One Science Montpellier Foundation. These institutions support the development of the Pl@ntNet citizen science platform and its plant identification tool.

A Plant Identification Tool

The Pl@ntNet project began in 2009 with a prototype capable of recognizing 33 species of Mediterranean trees from leaf scans. Today, the application can identify nearly 60,000 species worldwide. It has several tens of millions of users and is translated into more than 50 languages.

A Participatory Database

Pl@ntNet relies on a global community of contributors who share their observations and photos of plants.

This data enriches species sheets and improves the application’s performance. It is also made available to the scientific community via the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and the Inventaire National du Patrimoine Naturel (INPN). To date, the data produced by the Pl@ntNet community and shared on GBIF has been used in more than 1000 scientific publications (gbif.com and HAL INRIA).

To contribute to the project, you need to create an account and share your observations.

A Learning Platform

Pl@ntNet is also an educational tool dedicated to the knowledge and learning of botany. The information it produces is accessible by species or geographical area. It is used in many fields such as conservation, education, agriculture, tourism, commerce, gardening…

A Biodiversity Mapping Tool

Thanks to the geolocation observations of users, Pl@ntNet contributes to biodiversity mapping. This data allows modeling the distribution of species, accessible via the GeoPl@ntNet tool.

A Scientific Research Platform

Pl@ntNet is involved in research projects in botany, conservation, ecology and agronomy which have led to more than fifty publications in scientific journals as well as several theses.

A Professional API

Pl@ntNet offers a Pro API that allows integrating its recognition service into other applications. This API is an asset for many projects requiring automatic plant identification. It has more than 10,000 users.

Usage Statistics

  • More than one billion plant identifications have been carried out since the launch of Pl@ntNet, making this application an essential resource for plant identification.

  • The application covers more than 60,000 illustrated species, accompanied by detailed descriptions, encouraging user learning and discovery.

  • To date, about twenty micro-projects are hosted on the platform.

  • Pl@ntNet records on average 100,000 to 700,000 active users per day, with peaks reaching 1.5 million daily identifications during periods of high activity.

  • More statistics are available on https://identify.plantnet.org/stats