I recently noted that you can now order earthworms using your smart phone, and now comes another app for the high-tech naturalist: it allows you to identify leaves.
Leafsnap is the first in a series of electronic field guides being developed by researchers from Columbia University, the University of Maryland, and the Smithsonian Institution. This free mobile app uses visual recognition software to help identify tree species from photographs of their leaves.
Leafsnap contains beautiful high-resolution images of leaves, flowers, fruit, petiole, seeds, and bark. Leafsnap currently includes the trees of New York City and Washington, D.C., and will soon grow to include the trees of the entire continental United States.
A free version for the iPhone is available now. Apps for the Droid and iPad are coming soon.
Here's a video.
