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Swipe Right: a Comparison of Accuracy of Plant Identification Apps for Toxic Plants

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Abstract

Introduction

Plant identification applications for use on smartphones have been increasing in availability, accuracy, and utilization. We aimed to perform an introductory study to determine if a plant identification application (ID app) used on a smartphone could identify toxic plants, and to compare apps to determine which is most reliable.

Methods

We compared three popular iPhone plant ID apps, PictureThis (PT), PlantSnap (PS), and Pl@ntNet (PN), used to identify 17 commonly encountered toxic plants. Apps were used to photograph the entire plant, leaves, and flowers of ≥ 10 different plants for each species. Two toxicologists performed plant identification with confirmation of identification performed by a botanist, and inter-researcher agreement was confirmed. For each plant species, scores for accuracy of app identification of leaves, flowers, and whole plant were combined to create an overall composite score used to compare accuracy of each app (95% C.I.).

Results

PictureThis had the best performance with 10/17 (59% [36 to 78]) plant species identified 100% correctly, as opposed to 8/17 (47% [26 to 69]) for Pl@ntNet and 1/17 for PlantSnap (5.8% [1.1 to 27]).

Conclusion

A plant identification app may be a useful tool to assist healthcare providers and the public in identifying toxic plants.

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Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

Authors JO and CT contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by JO and CT. SM performed plant identity verification. The manuscript was written by JO and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jenna Otter.

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Supervising Editor: Mark B. Mycyk, MD

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Previous Presentations: Data from this study were presented at the American College of Medical Toxicology (ACMT) Annual Scientific Meeting in March, 2020 in New York, NY. 

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Otter, J., Mayer, S. & Tomaszewski, C.A. Swipe Right: a Comparison of Accuracy of Plant Identification Apps for Toxic Plants. J. Med. Toxicol. 17, 42–47 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13181-020-00803-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13181-020-00803-6

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