I love taking photographs of flowers but I am terrible at identifying them. I usually rely on knowledgeable readers like Dame Eleanor to help identify flowers on my blog, as in this vacation day post. But for today's flower-centric post, I decided to run my photos through Google Images to see how well the algorithm does in identifying flowers from photographs.
Of course, the algorithm isn't using its knowledge of flowers for identification as a person would. It works by "analyzing the submitted picture and constructing a mathematical model of it. It is then compared with other images in Google's databases before returning matching and similar results. When available, Google also uses metadata about the image such as the description."
Let's take a look at a series of 14 flower photos that I took earlier this summer in my neighborhood along the Mississippi River in St Paul, Minnesota. (The order of the photos is just the order in which I took them on my walk.) I'll tell you what Google came up with as image matches for each one. It (usually) gave me the name of the flower at the top of the page, then showed an array of "matching" images with more information about that particular image, such as the varietal. Do you know what these flowers are? Did Google identify them? Did Google get them right? Let's see...
Flower 1:
Google's identification: "Daylilies - Plant"
A lot of images of the Daylily (Hemerocallis), with the varietal 'Purple De Oro' as the most common, as shown here. Other varietal contenders include 'Bourbon Kings,' 'Summer Wine,' and 'Little Lottie.' But every image in the results was a Daylily. I had no idea what this flower was.
Flower 2:
Google's identification: It didn't list one!
But as with Flower 1, all images shown were the Daylily (Hemerocallis), this time with the varietal 'Happy Returns' as the most common, as shown here. The other varietal option suggested was the 'Stella De Ora.' I'm not sure why it didn't identify it as a Daylily since the results were so consistent. Based on the yellow color and general shape, I'd wondered if it was a daffodil, but looking at it now, I can definitely see the resemblance to Flower 1 (I know, I said I wasn't good at this, haha!).
Flower 3:
Google's identification: "Orange day-lily - Plant"
Are you starting to see a theme here? Once again, all images of the Daylily (Hemerocallis), with the varietal 'Mauna Loa' as the most common, as shown here. The other varietal option suggested was the 'Spirit Fox.' For some reason, I did recognize this as a lily when I saw it (despite not recognizing the previous two as lilies); I think the orange color made a difference.
Flower (Plant) 4:
Google's identification: "Plantain lilies - Plant"
Despite my not having high hopes of this one because it's just some green leaves (haha), I got a bunch of images of Hosta, with the varietal 'Blaze of Glory' as the most common, as shown here. Other varietal contenders include 'Smooth Sailing,' 'Dawn's Early Light,' and 'Sum and Substance.' The consensus on the particular varietal was lower than for the Daylilies. But it was confusing because the identification at the top said Plantain Lilies instead of Hosta...until I Googled it and found out that these are just two different terms for the same plant!
Flower 5:
Google's identification: "Plantain lilies - Plant"
So of course this is the same plant as the previous one, not that I'd had any idea of that going into this process! I got a bunch of images of Hosta again...though some were labeled Plaintain Lily this time. Many different varietals came up, including the 'Midnight Sun,' as shown here.
Flower 6:
Google's identification: "Great mullein - Plant"
For this strange plant...which with my keen knowledge of botany I categorize as one of the "Dr. Seuss plants"...I got images with a variety of labels, including Mullein, Woolly Mullein, Verbascum thapsus, Könanglaacht...and Common Mullein, as shown here. I guess this is some kind of Mullein, a totally unfamiliar plant with a lot of names.
Flower 7:
Google's identification: "Smooth hydrangea - Plant"
There was total consistency in the images, all of which had some kind of hydrangea in their accompanying text. Whether it's paniculata, quercifolia, arborescens as shown here, or yet a different type, I couldn't tell you based on these results. I always think of this one as the "if a cauliflower were an actual flower" flower, but I must have seen an identified photo of hydrangea recently because just before I put this image into the search, the word "hydrangea" popped into my head as though that's obviously what this plant it. Strange!
Flower (Plant) 8:
Google's identification: It didn't list one!
Despite the lack of identification at the top of the page, it did return a lot of images of Coral Bells (Heuchera), with the varietal 'Sugar Plum' as the most common, as shown here. Other varietal contenders include 'Silver Gumdrop,' 'Silver Lode,' 'Stainless Steel,' and others that all look identical to me! Needless to say, I had zero idea what this plant was.
Flower 9:
Google's identification: It didn't list one!
This was the most confusing and diverse set of images yet. Is it Catmint? Indian Coleus? Salvia? Lavender? Bugleweed? Indigo Spires? Sage? Baikal Skullcap?? Darwin's Blue Speedwell??? I clicked through the photos and the one that looks closest to my (unreliable) eye was Salvia (sylvestrisis) 'May Night' as shown here. Confusingly, I also thought it looked like Meadow Sage but that turns out to be the same plant, I think. In any case, I'd say that Google really doesn't know what this one is! Do you?
Flower 10:
Google's identification: It didn't list one!
At this point, I started longing for the simplicity of the Daylily identification experience as the algorithm once again doesn't give me a plant label at the top of the page and shows a variety of flower images...that do mostly have Spirea in the text at least. Which Spirea? Well, it looked the most like japonica 'Anthony Waterer,' as shown here, to me, but there were a number of other contenders.
Flower 11:
Google's identification: "Crownvetch - Plant"
The algorithm took pity on me and gave me a reasonably straightforward set of images of Crown Vetch (Coronilla varia), as shown here. I got a laugh from the fact that the very first image in the array of "matching" images had the file name "File:Flower Unknown 020.jpg." My own file name was "Purple layered flower" so I feel one up on that other photographer because at least I could tell the color!
Flower 12:
Google's identification: "Hybrid Rugosa - Plant"
So this was another confusing one until I figured out that Pavement Rose and Rosa rugosa and the various Rosa rugosa hybrids that appeared in the image text all seemed to be highly related or the same thing. They did offer up some images that I think are entirely separate plants from this, such as Peter Cottontail Yarrow, which looks wrong for my flower but is a wonderful rabbit-y name I approve of. (I wonder if that's a "rabbit-resistant" plant, as I saw some other ones on this list described.) I thought the pavement rose shown here was pretty similar to my flower. I guess I should admit that I didn't recognize this as a kind of rose, even though my husband did.
Flower 13:
Google's identification: It didn't list one!
This one was rather confusing as well. Is it Dragon's Blood Stonecrop? Sedum spurium? Red Summer Glory? Phedimus spurius? Flowerglow Sedum? Are these names for the same plant or different ones? I eventually landed on Sedum spurium aka Creeping Stonecrop aka Two Row Stonecrop 'Summer Glory' as closest to my flower, as shown here. When I first saw this plant, I couldn't tell whether it was a blooming succulent or some flowers and a succulent that were separate from each other; I'm not accustomed to thinking of succulents having flowers, although of course cacti can have flowers and cacti are succulents (I did just double check that fact).
Flower 14:
Google's identification: "Purple conflower - Plant"
Our last flower was one my husband and I both recognized as a type of coneflower based on our extensive experience with Texas wildflowers. But there was still confusion to be found in the "matching" images of Echinacea purpurea, red Echinacea, Hybrid Echinacea, conflower plants, etc. I thought my photo looked similar to the Echinacea purpurea shown here. (It was interesting to see what Echinacea looks like, since I was only familiar with it in pill form as a supplement used to fight colds and infections.) I Googled "purple coneflower vs. coneflower" since the algorithm had offered just plain "Coneflower" as another search option. I loved this explanation from a Master Class on growing Echinacea in your garden:
Echinacea is one of the three different genera known as coneflowers. Some well-known species in the Echinacea genus include Echinacea angustifolia and Echinacea purpurea. Members of the Echinacea species are known by their common name, purple coneflowers, or (confusingly) just coneflowers.
So "purple coneflower" doesn't mean a coneflower that is purple; it's the common name for the particular coneflowers in the Echinacea genus?! O-kay!
So how did you do with identifying these flowers? Do you think Google got them all correct? (I got 3 vaguely right out of 14, which is 21%.) What's your experience with Google Images/Google Lens reverse image search? Have you found it to be reliable? Have you ever used it for nature photography?
Blogs I link up with are listed here.
I have used Google image to find what plants or flowers are and usually it has worked well for me especially if the plant/flower has distinctive features. Sometimes though it does give a wide range of photographs and then it doesn't really help.
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Sally, I love this post! I am going out in my yard to photograph some unidentified plant life and see if Google Lens can ID them for me. We have a bunch of white wispy flowers that I cannot tell if they are Queen Anne's Lace or Ragweed. I also have some daisy-like plants that popped up in a raised flower bed that I recently purchased second hand, still filled with soil. I am terrible at plant/flower identification so I am excited to try this out!
Shelbee
I have never thought of using Google to identify photos I've taken but it looks like it did a decent job of at least narrowing it down. I knew quite a few of the plants you had pictured-- maybe not the exact variety but I knew "some sort of day lily" and the hydrangeas, the hostas, the roses, etc.
I expect the coneflower is a "cultivar," that is, a deliberately bred version of the native plant, as that bright red is not one of the native colors (which are pink/mauve and yellow).
The only one I couldn't identify was the blue-purple spiky one that Google had trouble with. Here I would be looking at things like stem shape (mints have square stems) as well as details like whether the stem and leaves are smooth or hairy, and leaf shape---like you with one of the other pictures, I'm not sure if the leaves shown belong to the plant or are something else it is growing through, and that is particularly hard to work out from a picture! To me, the…