TIL: A Shazam for Plants - Let's Make Foraging Great Again or How not to lose thosand generation's worth of knowledge
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Today I discovered that there is a Shazam for plants. This is great as there are many varieties of plants all over the world. Currently, there are over 6000 plants that are recognizable by the app in Western Europe and that's just a fraction of all available plants. You can see what plants are already in the database by clicking on "Explore" button on the website.
There is more than one database so you should pick one based on your location.
For this to work there are two factors. There needs to be a detailed sketch of the plant or detailed picture. This is true even during identification. To properly identify the plant you need to take a detailed picture of one part of the plant, let's say a leaf, and a plant. You also have to take a picture from different angles.
Then the second part is the database and the data in there. This needs to grow.
Here's a video by the Authors:
Call to Action
In my recent article on what we can learn from our ancestors I talked about food acquisition and how we lost the extensive knowledge for us to get food from wild environments. We don't have this knowledge anymore as no one is passing that to us as we grow up. It's almost lost. So let's try to save it through technology.
So here's the most important part. If we actually want to use it for foraging, we need to start submitting plants and pictures.
So take out your camera, identify some plants and submit it. This way we can bring foraging to the wider community and make it more accessible. And this way, we will also protect the knowledge from dying out.
Go and make foraging Great Again :).
And if you know of any similar tool, for example for fungi, let us know in the comments.
About the Author;
Hi, I am Joe and I love freedom.
Freedom of all sorts, social, financial, emotional, physical, freedom from your stuff or place.
My biggest passion is to show that it is possible to live life being free, work towards my freedom, and help others obtain their own versions of freedom.
I also love exploration and experimentation (of all senses).
My articles are about all of this (Freedom, exploration, experimentation)
as well as my own transparent and authentic experiences.
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It's interesting that they have sections for western Europe, Indian Ocean, South America, and North Africa - but not North America, Australia, or Asia. It's probably way more practical to focus on a few specific regions.
It would be great to get your review of using this app for your region - or a tutorial on how it works!
Yea, I was especially surprised for North America. But I think it should be possible to start using it there, too. I will have to look more into it and ask if it's possible to "bootstrap" or "crowdstart" a database in different region.
Yea, I'll try it out once I get a slightly faster phone and then I'll give it a spin, at least around a park.
Nice! I look forward to you trying it out.
Thanks for sharing!!
No problem. If you start using it let us know. I am especially curious if you start using it in Eastern Europe or North America.
I will use it in Eastern Europe.
Awesome. I'll do the same
(Or to be more precise , Central Europe, though there is no difference :D)
Nice!!