This is an annotated list of online resources for help in identifying plants. The emphasis is on tropical plants, but many of the resources are broad enough to cover all regions.
DELTA (DEscription Language for TAxonomy)
- Search for any Family or Genus name and obtain a complete botanical description. You can also download computer programs to set up automated keys. An example is NaviKey, a Java applet that lets you work through a key based on the contents of DELTA files.
- Served from the University of Georgia, Missouri Botanical Garden, and Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. There are ID Nature Guides for Plants, Vertebrates, Insects, and Others. I usually go straight to the Flora of the Neotropics, but many other groups are covered as well. At present, Neotropical Flora has 8,246 species. You narrow them down by checking the location, altitude, and habitat of your plant and then work your way through several plant characteristics. The characteristics are illustrated, so it’s a useful guide for beginners.
Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden Botanical Resource Center and Virtual Herbarium
- Key to flowering plant families of Jamaica (148 families covered). Based entirely on leaf and stem characteristics. In the left-hand frame of the key is a glossary of leaf characteristics terms and a list of the families covered. Each item on these lists link to a photo illustrating either the characteristic or the family.
- From UC Davis. This quiz may not help you identify a particular plant, but it’s fun to take to test yourself on how well you know plant families.
- Based on the book by Gentry (see references). Very simple to use but limited to plants likely to be found in Manu National Park, Peru.
Trees, Shrubs, and Palms of Panama
- If all you have is the common name in Spanish of a plant, this would be a good place to start. It’s a checklist of the known plants (trees, shrubs, and palms) of Panama. You can search by Family or by Species name as well. Depending on the information available, you may find photos of different plant parts (leaves, flowers, fruits), the distribution, key characteristics, and uses of the plant.
- From the Field Museum of Chicago. Includes downloadable Rapid Color Guides that you can print out and take into the field. Guides are arranged by country, but may be sorted by title. Ten guides are available from three areas in Panama. If you have an idea of the scientific name of the plant you’re interested in, you can search (by the beginning letters of the Family or Genus name) the Neotropical Live Plant Photos or the Neotropical Herbarium Specimens section. You can also search the herbarium by the beginning letters of the Species name, or you can browse by Family, Genus, or Country.
- From Missouri Botanical Garden. Search the resources of MBG, which includes many associated tropical institutions, for species names. Find images and descriptions, including the original descriptions in Latin.
- From the University of Hawaii Botany Department. You can find information on both non-flowering and flowering plant families using any of the currently used taxonomic systems (Judd et al for non-flowering plants, Cronquist, Judd et al., and the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group for flowering plants). Includes schematic diagrams, phylograms, and tables.
- You can search a large database of images of live plants and herbarium specimens based on scientific name, characteristics of the plant, location of the plant, habitat, and other features.
What Plant is That? Flickr Group
- Plenty of photographers are interested in flowers and plenty of botanists have become photographers. Many of both are found in this Flickr Group. You can post an image of almost any plant and chances are good that, if it shows the plant’s characteristics fairly well, someone will know what it is.
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