Smart Phone Applications
to make observations of wild plants, including photos.

Related Topics:

If the GPS receiver built into your phone is not performing well, see this article:
Using an External Bluetooth GPS Receiver with a Smartphone or Tablet

Using Calflora for Data Acquisition and Management
An outline of the field methods workshop at Chico State University in January, 2013.

Define your own plant lists for use in the smart phone applications.

What Grows Here?
A new version of What Grows Here?, based on Google Maps, is available. The application can display an exhaustive plant list for a chosen area of the state in several formats. This version also has some interesting new ways to visualize plant data. Please try it out and send us your comments.

The original What Grows Here? Wizard is still available to help find a location in California. Starting from the wizard, you will end up in the new map application.

See What Grows Here? Help for details.

Entry Applications

Checklist Entry
to enter a checklist (many plants observed at one location).

Weed Observation Entry
including extra fields for weed work (HELP).

Plant Observation Entry
to enter observations one at a time (HELP).

SHAPES:
All three entry applications now include the ability to add a line or polygon to a record. Use it to describe the spatial extent of an plant population, or the area covered by a checklist.

For example, Jerry Baker added this polygon to describe the extent of a patch of Astragalus Brauntonii, Baunton's milk vetch, in Los Angeles Co.:

 

Plant Characteristics + Associated Organisms
This page shows additional characteristics of a plant, including what other organisms are associated with the plant (beneficial and pest). From the Taxon Report page for a particular plant, press the Plant Characteristics link on the right. For example, this page for Eriogonum umbellatum, sulphur buckwheat.

Data about native bees and other beneficial insects (which plants they favor) are from the XERCES SOCIETY.

See Plant Characteristics Help for details.

Advanced Search for Plants
This application provides for combinations of search criteria not available from the regular Search for Plants, such as:

• Does USDA PLANTS recognize the name?
• Are photos available on CalPhotos, or not?
• Does it bloom in January?

This application can show a list of plants in a two-photo format (similar to the Illustrated Plant List), or in a simple format, or as plain text.

Map Backgrounds
The various mapping applications can show a number of background layers, or polygon sets. Latest additions include the 2011 California Protected Areas Database from Greeninfo Network, Ecoregions from the US Forest Service, Annual Precipitation from the Prism Climate Group, and Nitrogen Deposition from the UC Riverside Center for Conservation Biology. See About Layers for details.

Comment on Observations
There is a comment system for observations. If you are registered as a contributor, you can add a comment on any observation record.

From My Calflora / Comments, you can look up all the comments you have made, or all the comments others have made about your observations.

Customize your Calflora Experience
From My Calflora / Preferences, you can specify your own center point for observations. This becomes the starting point for various applications, including Observation Entry, My Observations, and Observation Hotline. (If you haven't specified a center point, these applications start near Fresno.) If you belong to groups, you can also specify a default group for all of your new observations.

Plant Distribution Grid
shows the statewide distribution of a plant as a variable cell size grid, or as points. From the Taxon Report page for a particular plant, press the Distribution Grid link. (See also Plant Distribution Help for details.)

The cells are colored to make a heat map, indicating where a particular plant has been observed the most. For instance, this page for Rhamnus ilicifolia, hollyleaf redberry.

Observation Hotline
to search for observations with the help of a Google Map. This application shows contributed photos when they are available. (Thanks to everyone who has contributed their observations and the amazing photos!)

2012 September: Limit the search to the visible map area, or define a rectangular search area on the map.

Ceanothus gregii var. perplexans, cupped leaf ceanothus, San Diego Co. © 2011 Sherie Hubble

Other Data Sources: In addition to showing records contributed directly to Calflora, Observation Hotline can also show specimen records from the Consortium of California Herbaria, and observation records with photos from iNaturalist and What's Invasive.

Places to View California Native Plants
to surf through all available checklists on a map.

Bloom Period
is now shown on over 9,000+ Taxon Report pages. (See this note for more about bloom period and the sources of the data.) For example, see this page for Madia elegans.

An illustrated plant list can also show bloom period, and sort by the bloom start month.

The main Advanced Search for Plants application now supports searching by a bloom month; for instance, plants that bloom during June.

Photo-to-observation File Upload
to transform photos of plants into observation reports. If a photo is geotagged, the software will pick up the location; otherwise, you can set the location on a map.

Calflora Mobile Search for Plants
a smart phone application for looking up wild plants by name or characteristics. Click on a plant name, and you will see one or two photos of the plant. Works on Android and iPhone.

Plant List Definition
to define your own plant lists to be used in the Observer Smart Phone Application, in Observation Download, and in Observation Hotline.
 
Certain special purpose plant lists (BAEDN Priority Weeds, Cal-IPC Priority Weeds) are available for all users.

My Observations
to review, edit and publish your observations.

Observation Upload
to upload an entire dataset directly into the database. Copy and paste from a spreadsheet, or upload a shapefile. During the process, you assign fields in the dataset being uploaded to fields in the Calflora database.
 

Search for Plant Occurrence Records
 

Observation Download
to search for and download observations in a variety of formats.

2013 April 26:
Version 1.2.0 of the Calflora iPhone app is available on the iTunes store, thanks to the efforts of developer Rey Felipe and other Calflora team members.

This new version replaces the February 28, 2013 version, which had some problems. First, it would run out of memory and crash after a user had made 10 or so observations with photos. Second, for a few users, some of their uploaded records went into a developer's account.

Rey was able to find and fix these problems, and also to make the storage and transmission of photos much more efficient and reliable. The original app was essentially donated to Calflora by a volunteer, and was written when iPhone photos were much smaller. The app now functions well in the current iPhone/iOS (6.3.1) environment.

2012 January:
Most Taxon Report pages have a link in the bottom right called 2012 Jepson Manual Treatment which goes directly to the Jepson eFlora page for that plant. For example, Linanthus pungens.

2011 October:
Calflora has incorporated the Jepson Manual 2 scientific names into the Plant Name Library. Search for what has become of particular plant names with the Name Status application.
 

See also Web Applications for Invasives