Suggestion filters: create custom species lists

Our database contains about 30,000 plant species. Geographical distribution is the obvious way to describe this variability but there are many others, such as morphology, ecology, or practical use. We have used these variables to create Suggestion filters for individual plant lists. These lists can be combined to modify the response of our identification model, thereby increasing accuracy.

You can combine individual species lists using logical operators AND and OR, and brackets, e.g:

Europe OR North America OR Houseplant.

This will select all species native or introduced to Europe and North America, as well as houseplants (regardless of geographic region). See FAQs for details, documentation for implementation to API. You can find all the filters here.

Let's look at an example of a photo taken in my garden. I wanted to check if the plant my son had planted was really a tomato. 

‍

Here are the top 5 suggestions from the full model:

1. Galeopsis..... 17%
2. Mentha spicata..... 17%
3. Teucrium..... 16%
4. Solanum lycopersicum..... 16%
5. Melissa officinalis..... 11%

The model is clearly confused by all the other plants growing there.

Here is the result of the model where a Suggestion filter “vegetable” was applied:

1. Solanum lycopersicum..... 53%
2. Stachys..... 22%
3. Chaerophyllum..... 14%
4. Valeriana..... 3%
5. Lathyrus..... 2%

You can see that tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) has moved into 1st place; it also received a higher certainty. Note that genera containing some vegetables also appear here.

The geo-based information is based on the POWO database. Please note that POWO only includes occurrences of native, introduced and invasive species, i.e. species that occur in the wild. Occurrences of cultivated plants, including houseplants and garden plants, are not included. If you wish to include these species in your list, please use other categories.

Some categories, especially Houseplant, Ornamental garden plant, Weedy plant and Culinary herb, are rather fuzzy. For example, the common ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia) is considered a noxious weed in temperate regions but not in the tropics. We wanted to reflect the prevailing view in the northern hemisphere, where most of our customers are located.

We are happy to help you create your own Suggestion filters and are open to creating custom ones; please email us at support@kindwise.com. Suggestion filters for other Kindwise products, including Insect.id and Mushroom.id are coming soon.