As the weather slowly begins to warm up, more time will begin to be spent outdoors. Should you have trouble identifying Poison Ivy from Scotch Cap, the Windows Phone 8 app Plant Guide might come in handy.
Plant Guide is a pocket reference guide that provides information on thousands of species of wild plants. The app also has support for HERE Maps should you get lost on your hikes or need to mark a spot on the map for reference. While it may not tickle everyone’s fancy, Plant Guide makes a nice first impression and if you need help identify plants it is worth a try.
Plant Guide is laid out with main pages that include:
- Identification Page: Here is where you can discover the genus of thousands of species of plants through a series of questions (Is it a vine plant? Does it have pine leafs? etc.), access the Arbor Day Foundation website and visit the WhatsThisPlant website where you can upload a photo of a plant for identification.
- Directory: An A-Z listing of the plants in the Plant Guides database. The listing will include photos, scientific classifications and descriptive information on the plant.
- Useful Pages: This page has information on poisonous plants, on learning leaf margins, and on learning the differences between the various types of compound leafs.
At the bottom of the page you will find control buttons to turn your Windows Phone camera light on and off as well as a control button to view your location on HERE Maps.
In tinkering with Plant Guide for a short while, it comes across as an informative, nicely laid out reference app for Windows Phone 8. I can see it coming in handy while camping or just trying to identify plants to avoid due to allergies or their poisonous character.
For some identifying plants may sound about as fun as watching paint drying but if you spend any time outdoors, it could help you avoid the need for Calamine lotion. Plant Guide is a free, ad-supported Windows Phone 8 app and you can remove the ads with a $.99 in-app purchase.
You can find Plant Guide here in the Windows Phone Store.
