There has been a recent explosion in development of image recognition technology and its application to automated plant identification, so it is timely to consider its potential for field botany. Nine free apps or websites for automated plant identification and suitable for use on mobile phones or tablet computers in the field were tested on a disparate set of 38 images of plants or parts of plants chosen from the higher plant flora of Britain and Ireland. There were large differences in performance with the best apps identifying >50 % of samples tested to genus or better. Although the accuracy is good for some of the top-rated apps, for any quantitative biodiversity study or for ecological surveys, there remains a need for validation by experts or against conventional floras. Nevertheless, the better-performing apps should be of great value to beginners and amateurs and may usefully stimulate interest in plant identification and nature. Potential uses of automated image recognition plant identification apps are discussed and recommendations made for their future use.

中文翻译：

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那是什么植物 测试自动图像识别应用程序以识别英国植物区系中的植物

图像识别技术的发展及其在自动植物识别中的应用近来出现了爆炸式增长，因此，应及时考虑其在田间植物学中的潜力。在来自英国和爱尔兰的高等植物区系的38种植物或植物部分的完全不同的图像集上测试了9个免费应用程序或网站，这些应用程序或网站用于植物的自动识别，并且适合在野外的移动电话或平板电脑上使用。最好的应用程序能识别出大于50％的属或更好的样本，因此性能存在很大差异。尽管对于某些顶级应用程序，任何定量的生物多样性研究或生态调查而言，准确性都不错，但仍需要专家进行验证或针对常规菌群进行验证。不过，性能更好的应用程序对于初学者和业余爱好者应该具有巨大的价值，并且可以有效激发人们对植物识别和自然的兴趣。讨论了自动图像识别植物识别应用程序的潜在用途，并为将来的使用提出了建议。