Oregon Wildflowers

High Country Apps, LLC

About this app

The Oregon Flora Project at Oregon State University and High Country Apps have partnered to produce the new Oregon Wildflowers plant identification app for smart phones and tablets. The app provides photographs, range maps, bloom period, and detailed descriptions for more than 940 common wildflowers, shrubs, and vines that occur throughout Oregon and adjacent areas of California, Washington and Idaho.

Designed for both budding wildflower enthusiasts and experienced botanists, Oregon Wildflowers will appeal to individuals who are interested in the names and natural history of the plants they encounter. It is an excellent educational tool for all ages to learn about botany, plant communities, and ecology using the plants found throughout Oregon. Each of the 947 plants profiled has multiple photographs, distribution maps, and a detailed description. The majority of species included are native, and introduced species common to the region are also covered. Plant hunters can use the app to identify species in all ten of Oregon’s diverse ecoregions.

Users can browse through the stunning photographs of plants organized by common name, scientific name, or by family to select a plant and access the related information. However, most users will likely use the identification key that is the core of the app to identify an unknown plant of interest.

The key's interface allows users to select from twelve illustrated categories: geographic region, type of plant (e.g., wildflower, vine, shrub), flower features (flower color, number of petals, inflorescence shape, flowering month), leaf features (arrangement on plant, leaf type, leaf shape, leaf margin), plant size, and habitat.

Once downloaded, the app does not need an internet or network connection to run so you can use it no matter how remote your wanderings take you.

The Oregon Flora Project is preparing a comprehensive Flora of Oregon for publication in 2015. The Oregon Wildflowers app presents a subset of this information—over 20% of the state’s unique plants—formatted for mobile devices and easily mastered by a wide audience. Users will find extensive information on the ecoregions and plant habitats of Oregon, a glossary of botanical terms, and descriptions of each plant family represented in the app. The Oregon Flora Project website (www.oregonflora.org) contains additional information about all of Oregon’s 4,560 vascular plants.

A portion of revenues from the app supports conservation and botanical exploration in the region.

Ratings and reviews

I do not like the strong arm sales technique of "Buy before you try". But as this app came recommended, I went ahead with the purchase while on a hike with LTE service. The app is so big that it warned me not install it unless I was on wifi. So I did that 2 hours later when I returned home. But I immediately realized that the person who recommended it must have had it confused with another app because there is NO ability to use a photo of the plant you are looking at to narrow things down. And 2 hours later was too late for a refund. But in the end I looked through the information in the app and feel there is enough there to justify the $9.00. I tried identifying a couple of wildflowers I know and was not successful using the characteristics to get to them. So I don't think it will be too helpful for actually identifying the plants upfront, but I will look for another app to do that. But once identified some other way, this app will provide a lot of information with the descriptions, range, etc.

As someone who does botany surveys for work I find this app super helpful. I'm very weary of apps that use photos as the same species of plant can differ in appearance based on location and climate. Using botanical characteristics to narrow down your search makes way more sense. It's worth every penny! I also recommend using the WA app concurrently as it has some species this one doesnt and vice versa.

Excellent, off-line, easy to navigate. I do wish you could set defaults, I was in Steens for a month but had to reset the limits every time I opened the app to search. Favorites feature is very useful. Highly recommended

What's new

Updated for API 34 and Android 14.
Added popups for glossary terms in technical plant descriptions.
Added ability to put scientific name in copy buffer/clipboard to paste into other apps.