We've all heard the classic saying "leaves of three, let it be," which means don't touch the poison ivy. But just how accurate is that timeless phrase? While this specific mnemonic device exists to ...

It's a Treehugger's dream come true. Leafsnap is a free app that identifies plant species of all kinds, from flowers and bark to fruit and trees. Go for a walk, take a shot of a leaf, and this little ...

A new iPhone app called LeafSnap is a field guide for tech-friendly naturalists. It can identify a tree's species by analyzing a photograph of its leaf. [partner id ...

A computer program that learns and can categorize leaves into large evolutionary categories such as plant families will lead to greatly improved fossil identification and a better understanding of ...

Ordinarily, if you want to check if two plants of the same species come from genetically different populations, you have to analyze their DNA. A new study, however, has found that an analysis of the ...

Steve Nix is a member of the Society of American Foresters and a former forest resources analyst for the state of Alabama. Trees are among the earth's most useful and beautiful products of nature.

Fossil plants reveal the evolution of green life on Earth, but the most abundant samples that are found -- fossil leaves -- are also the most challenging to identify. A large, open-access visual leaf ...

Spring is in full bloom and trees are beginning to look green again. Learning how to identify trees in yards, neighborhoods and local parks provides insight into the diversity and relationships found ...

Computers are gaining on our botany skills. Scientists have developed software that combines machine learning and computer vision to guess which plant family a leaf belongs to. Although it's designed ...