Mr. Bill wrote:

What are your thoughts on something like this?

Wouldn't it be nice to have a plant sample in hand and be able to input the
charachteristics of the plant to identify it?

Start with a blank template. Choose the most basic trait i.e. evergreen or
deciduous (check one)
Grows outdoors in zone X.

Now we have eliminated either deciduous or evergreen plants (whichever was
not chosen) right there we elimintaed thousands of plants.

By choosing the zone the plant grows in outdoors we have eliminated all
plants that absolutely will NOT grow in that zone; i.e. a plant that olny
grows in the tropics will not survive in USDA zone 2. ( I think you see
what I am getting at...)

What are your thoughts on something like this? I always see "can you help
me ID this plant" postings here and had this seed of a thought so I thought
to plant it here and see what might grow out of it...


Mr. Bill

I think you would obviously have to eliminate container plants as they
could be more 'tropical' than the zone would suggest, but overwintered
indoors. So, for 'wild' or garden planted stuff, it would at least
eliminate many species, but likely many species could be eliminated by
common sense anyway. Obviously a dandelion is not an oak tree. So, as
others suggested, similar species may require an expert anyway. It's a
good suggestion, but probably not without some chance of confusion/failure.

Carl


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