1Is the Flora Incognita App available in different languages?
Flora Incognita is available in German and English. We also offer a Bulgarian, Chinese, Dutch, Estonian, Finish, French, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish and Ukranian version of the app.
By default the app language is the same as of your device system. If you use your device in a language not supported by us, Flora Incognita will automatically be in English.
However, it is possible to change the app language independently of the device language under „Settings“.
2Can plants be identified offline?
Flora Incognita’s plant recognition only works with a connection to our servers, i.e. with an active internet connection.
If you do not have an internet connection for an interesting plant outside in the wild, you can still take photos (preferably from three different perspectives) with your normal mobile camera and later load them from the photo gallery into the Flora Incognita app to have them identified. A detailed explanation for this process can be found in the next section.
3How can I switch to the pictures from the photo gallery?
In order to determine images from the photo gallery of your private device, you can read them during the determination process using the Flora Incognita App. Tap on the three dots next to the camera icon when prompted to take the first photo. The camera icon becomes a gallery icon, which you can use to load images from your device’s photo memory into the app.
4How can I save observations?
Every observation you confirm is automatically saved in your profile and can be viewed at any time under „My observations“. If you use Flora Incognita with a guest profile, i.e. without a user account, your observations will not be saved and will be lost if you log out or uninstall the app.
5How can I delete observations?
You can delete individual observations by wiping the observation to the left in the observation list. The possibility to delete several observations at once does not exist yet.
6Is it possible to edit observations afterwards?
Yes, if a plant identification has been saved, you can change the plant name afterwards under the menu item „My observations“. Select the respective observation and tap on the pen to the right of the species name. You can also edit the notes for this observation by tapping the orange pen in the note field.
7Can observations be exported?
Under „My observations“ you can export completed observations to your photo gallery or share them directly with other people. Tap on the icon in the upper right corner of the screen. If you are in full view mode of a photo, you can export or share simply this single photo.
You can also export the entire observation list with species name and coordinates.
For some Android phones an additional file manager has to be installed (e.g. the TotalCommander).
8Can I set favourites?
No, at the moment it is not possible to define favourite observations. This function will be integrated into the app soon.
9What to do if a required perspective of the plant cannot be photographed?
If it is not possible for you to photograph a perspective required by the app, e.g. because the plant has no flower or leaves, you can skip that perspective. Tap on the arrow to the right of the camera symbol. This will take you to the next perspective.
10What can I do if I forgot my password?
The menu will take you to the profile page where you can log in. If you have forgotten your password, there is the option „Forgot your password?“ Tap on this option and enter your e-mail address. You will then receive a link to create a new password.
11Do I have to create a profile?
You do not need a profile in order to identify plants with the Flora Incognita App. If you don´t want a profile, tap „Without profile“ on the login page.
To create a profile, all you need to do is enter an e-mail address and a password. All your recorded observations will be stored under this profile. This allows you to log into the Flora Incognita App on other or new devices and have your entire observation list anywhere with you.
You find more information on our Blog.
12What kind of plants can be identified with Flora Incognita?
Currently Flora Incognita can distinguish between 4.840 different vascular plants. This means that wild herbs, trees, grasses and ferns are identified, whereas mosses, lichens and fungi will not be identified. Cultivated species and varieties are also not included in the app, as the Flora Incognita project focuses on wild plant species.
13Do I have to pay for the app?
No. The app can be downloaded for free and is free of advertising. This is made possible by funding from the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (Bundesamt für Naturschutz – BFN) with means of the Federal Ministry of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (Bundesministerium für Umwelt, Naturschutz und nukleare Sicherheit – BMU) and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung – BMBF), as well as the Thuringian Ministry of the Environment, Energy and Nature Conservation (Thüringer Ministerium für Umwelt, Energie und Naturschutz – TMUEN) and the Nature Conservation Foundation Thuringia (Stiftung Naturschutz Thüringen).
14What is the difference between the Flora Incognita App and the Flora Capture App?
With the Flora Incognita App, plants can be automatically identified using one or a maximum of three photos. The Flora Capture App, on the other hand, collects specific plant photos from specific perspectives, which are transferred to our databases and thus improve automatic photo identification. Further information can be found here.
15Why does the app need access to my location?
The aim of Flora Incognita as a research project is mapping plants. This is only possible if we have locations for all the plants recorded. Further information on this topic can be found here.
16Why does the app need access to my media storage?
If you want to determine a plant photo from your device memory (see questions 2 and 3), the app must be able to access the photos in the media storage.
17Why does my camera or image import not work? (Android only)
You want to identify a plant with the Flora Incognita App, but your camera won’t open? Once access to the data storage has been denied, the app will not be able to take a picture or identify photos from your storage (see also point 16). In this case, you will have to grant access to the media storage manually in the settings of your smartphone (see next point).
18How can I subsequently grant access to the media storage or GPS? (Android only)
Open “Settings” on your Android device. Tap on “Apps” or “Apps & notifications”. Select the Flora Incognita app there, then select “Permissions”. Allow access to the storage or location there.
19Tips for focusing
If you have difficulty focusing on a delicate object, take your finger and hold it close to the object. Focus on it and hold it for a long time so that the autofocus is locked. Then back to the plant and go!
20Using the zoom improves the automatic recognition
By using the zoom, you can get the images in a way that Flora Incognita can identify plants much more reliably!
It does not work like this:
It works like this:
21What do the different colors of the checkmarks in my observation list mean?
Normally, plant images of the Flora Incognita App are identified purely by computer. Occasionally, however, we may look at some observations in person and then manually confirm or mark them as incorrect. In the app you can recognize this by the different colored symbols behind each observation in your observation list: In most cases you will see a small check mark in a grey cloud. This indicates that the observation has been successfully transmitted and determined by our server network. If there is a check mark in a green circle, the plant has been manually determined by us and the given name has been found to be correct. A red colour circle means that the given name is not correct, i.e. the plant could not be determined correctly. If the colour circle around the check mark is purple, we consider the plant to be identifiable, but this requires even more expert knowledge. The observation was therefore put aside for a later date. The orange colour circle means that the observation has not yet been manually determined.
22ATTENTION: ADVERT TRAP
Over the past few days, we have received an increasing number of e-mails from frustrated nature lovers who have fallen into a subscription trap. The reason for this is an ad that appears in the App Store when Flora Incognita is searched. Here is an example: We have nothing to do with PictureThis. There are no connections to the developers or managers of this app. Unfortunately, the frustration of PictureThis users is transferred to our plant identification app.
We therefore ask for SPECIAL CARE when downloading apps.
Flora Incognita is free of advertising and costs
